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by oracular_vernacular



Series: Cronos [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Chronic Pain, Clones, Disabled Character, Fluff and Smut, Found Family, Intrigue, Loss of Virginity, Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Multi, Plotty, canon and EU mashup
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:26:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 40,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27179213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oracular_vernacular/pseuds/oracular_vernacular
Summary: The Clone Wars continue with no end in sight, and every unit in the Grand Army of the Republic is pushed to their limits. Having fallen for the Captain of the 501st and come terribly close to losing her squadmates, Sol Tannor tries to deal with her family's past as it continues to raise questions about the future.But, the more involved in classified missions Cronos Squad gets, the more their faith in Republic begins to shake. As the teeth of war close tighter around the galaxy, the fate of the Jedi, the clones, and of Mandalore hang in the balance.
Relationships: CT-7567 | Rex & Original Character(s), CT-7567 | Rex/Original Female Character(s), Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: Cronos [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881463
Comments: 23
Kudos: 50





	1. null sum

**_Dorumaa, abandoned subterranean laboratory complex, 20BBY_ **

It was the first time Sol had been on anything remotely resembling a mission without her Katarn-class commando armor on. The torso plate was still wrapped around her beneath the nondescript travelling clothes she wore, as though a few plates to shield her already delicate organs might secure her a margin more against fatal wounds. The rest of Cronos Squad was prepared to rush into the laboratory facility at a moment’s notice, of course. _Traat'aliit gar besbe'trayc,_ Apma had always said. _The squad is your weapon._ But for now, they were her protection as well. 

She slid through the passages, which weren’t crowded but should have been empty; this lab was supposed to be a derelict, tucked into the rocky surface of Dorumaa with its only entrance beneath the churning surface of the sea. Apparently whoever had rediscovered it had put it to use under the nose of any watchful eyes, or tried to. They were no doubt making a pretty penny, renting the spaces out to Maker knew who or what for.

Whoever else was on the trail of Ko Sai on behalf of the Republic had certainly found it somehow, or else she would not have been there. 

The fact that nobody, not even her old master General Windu, offered any information on which commandos had learned what about the elusive Kaminoan fugitive left a bad taste in the back of Sol’s throat. Perhaps keeping quiet about the Null-ARC they’d just barely brushed paths with on Aquaris wasn’t helping the matter. But transparency at least between the soldiers who were tasked with the same _mission_ seemed more than reasonable, even if said mission was classified. Whether it was some tendril of deception within high command or just growing paranoia, she couldn’t have been sure. 

But perhaps there was a reason that would have made sense had she been privy to it. She had her own secrets to keep, anyway. 

Another pair of doors slid open, and she was at the directory station. The small figure of an Ugnaught with goggles strapped to his high forehead barely perked at her approach. 

“I am looking for someone,” she said, affecting an accent that was a lot more Wild Space-ish since the accent of her Ferroan ancestors was one she’d never known, and the one she’d acquired in the Outer Rim was too identifying. She also wore goggles to cover her eyes, which were the most memorable physical trait she had, and a cowl that hid her white hair.

The Ugnaught grunted and huffed in his own language briefly before he said, “Well?”

“I believe you may know the name of Kolo Sidae?” Her voice was low as she leaned close to the desk behind which the Ugnaught was perched. He shuffled his finger over a datapad, looking between it and the screen display at his station.

“No Kolo Sidae,” he replied, frowning even more than he already was. 

“Please,” Sol said, “I must help her.”

“No Kolo Sidae!” His repetition was pointed, and he dropped his datapad onto the desk and crossed his arms.

“Not even for Tipoca?” It was the code word their intel had provided. She was about to find out just how dated it was.

The Ugnaught paused, raising a scraggly brow at her. His beady eyes looked her over; for all intents and purposes, she had transformed from GAR commando sergeant to space-weary traveler of no apparent origin, probably human, swathed in dirty gray robes over her utility jumpsuit and vest. She could have been anybody. The hope, of course, was that Ko Sai was not waiting for someone specific.

“Kolo Sidae,” he said, sliding a tiny datachip towards her. Taking it in her gloved hand, she nodded. 

“Thank you.” 

Shuffling away from the directory station, she put the chip inside her datapad to read it over. Her target’s laboratory was listed, along with a blank itinerary. Ko Sai wasn’t planning on going anywhere anytime soon— or, she was already gone, and her trail of breadcrumbs had become more intentional. 

It took Sol no time at all to find her way to the lab that was marked. It was deep in the tunnels, far from the entrance where her _vode_ were waiting for her. There was no window in the door, though, and she wasn’t about to knock. Sliding the chip out of her pad, she pushed it into a slot on the control panel and slid a quiet prayer into the universe that it would open, by some miracle. 

But nothing happened. She tapped a couple of buttons to no avail. Growling, she slapped the panel with frustration. How was she to get inside now? Her only other option was to wait for someone else to enter or leave. That seemed unlikely to happen anytime soon. Yanking the chip out, she chewed her lip, running through everything she knew about the underground labs and the intel report that had led her here. 

At the remarkably distant sound of footsteps far down towards the start of the dark hallway she was in, her ears pricked. Turning in the opposite direction, she moved silently as her father had taught her to around a nearby corner. Peeking just around the edge of the hallway, she waited. 

The figure that approached caused her to freeze; he was clad in blue and white clone armor, but it wasn’t the regalia of the 501st. It was unlike the others she had seen, a slightly older generation maybe. He stopped in front of the door precisely where she had been standing moments before, and slid a chip into its controls that slid the doors open. As though he belonged there, he marched inside. 

Sol stared as she tried to calculate her next move. It made no sense for two different units to be sent to one place with the same objective but totally separate from each other, just as Grip had said the first time. There was every possibility that he was an imposter, though how he would have access to GAR intel was a mystery that bore solving in her mind. Was she to apprehend him? Hail him? Pretend she knew he’d be here? But, strangely, the door to the lab hadn’t slid shut yet. It was wide open, and no light emanated from within. 

Knowing this was her chance, she rounded the corner and headed towards the lab. When she checked inside, her hand was on the Deece on her hip. But it was empty; none of the computing stations were active, and doors to the offices on the far side of the spacious room as well as a hallway that turned elsewhere were all darkened. There was no sight of the man in armor. 

She drew the blaster, held it ready, and turned on the nightvision filter inside her goggles. They were hardly a heads-up display like the one inside her helmet, but she wasn’t wholly underprepared. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but she had almost no doubt that he’d left the doors open to draw her in after him. Creeping slowly into the empty room, she slid down a row of computing stations to peek into an office. It was empty, as was the one next to it. But she knew he was very close, could sense him in her guts.

As she paused to peer through the window in the third office door, the lights came on and her nightvision filter blossomed into blinding white brilliance. Wincing silently, she squeezed her eyes shut and reached up to rip the goggles off. But before she could, there was a powerful kick to her right knee from behind. 

Being that that knee was made of surgical grade durasteel, though, it didn’t have quite the intended effect. She only faltered by a fraction, spinning around with her elbow out to nail her attacker approximately in his neck. But she made contact with a plasteel helmet instead. Though he fumbled he also brought up a gloved hand to grab her arm. The goggles were on the floor alongside her Deece, and Sol spun to send her booted foot flying towards the man’s hips to exploit his center of gravity against him. 

The tussle that followed was only seconds long, but it felt like hours that she tried to counteract his motions just as aggressively as he tried to counteract hers. Each of them landed a fair amount of hits, and once he went sprawling backwards over a nearby computing station. He was good, whoever he was; his primary mistake was the belief that his armor would protect him from her strikes. The durasteel elbow and knee pads complete with blunt-edged spines were the only other part of her Katarn suit that she had donned alongside the torso wrap— and they dug in between his plates viciously. 

His attempt to swing low into her gut granted her access to his neck, so she took the blow with a hand already prepared to strike there. That brought them both to the ground, gasping, but she recovered much more quickly and leapt up onto his armor to put her boot on one of his wrists and crouch low as she sat on his torso just below the chest plate where his own torso-wrap let her put her weight against the bottoms of his lungs, digging a knee in for emphasis. Before he could reach towards her with his free hand, she had flicked a vibroblade out of her hidden vambrace and slashed at his palm. He coughed as she pressed against his windpipe, and when she brought the high-pitched sizzle of the laser to bear on his carotid artery he went stiff. 

“Who do you work for, _hut’uun?_ ” she growled, easing her grip on his neck just enough for him to gasp. 

“The GAR!” he wheezed. Sol frowned, brow knitting as she narrowed her eyes at him. 

“What is your objective?” 

“Classified—”

“Is it Ko Sai?” 

His chest stiffened again, as though he were surprised enough to hold his breath. But then he gasped once more. “What are you, a merc?”

“No,” Sol replied. “I am here from the GAR as well.”

“You...” His disbelief was audible. “So the GAR hired you?”

“I’m a commando,” she said, still not at all interested in letting him off the floor even though she knew he would try and resist again as soon as he got his breath back. “And you’re a Null-ARC, aren’t you?”

His harsh breaths, still tempered by her pressure on his throat and solar plexus, came slow as he seemed to deliberate his answer. “You must be Sergeant Tannor,” he said at last. “I am Mereel Skirata. You might’ve heard of me referred to as N-7.” 

Sol eyed him, grinding her boot into his wrist as though to remind him that she was there when she felt his arm muscles start to tense. “I’ve heard less about you than you have about me, _verd,_ but I know the name Skirata.”

“From my father.”

“Among others.” Kal, the apparently famous trainer of the Null-ARCs, already gone from Kamino by the time she’d been sent there. Since she’d heard his name, she’d recalled a few things her father had told her about his clan, and not all of them ungenerous even.

But, that meant that he was an official GAR soldier, a clone, and she had no reason to detain or arrest him other than her deep distrust. Scowling, she climbed off of him at last. For a moment he laid on the floor to deepen his breaths and pull off his helmet. 

The face that looked up at her was the face of every clone in the GAR, but with its own look. A strange look, she thought, almost smiling. Mereel hauled himself upright, leaning against the computer terminal for a moment. 

“You’re very good,” he said. 

“I know,” she replied icily. “Why did they send you and my squad to the same target?”

“I have no idea.”

“You sure?” She raised a white eyebrow at him. “Didn’t just slip your mind?” 

“Just a minute, now,” he said with a chuckle. “Information for information. You tell me a little about yourself, I’ll tell you a little about myself. Seems fair, doesn't it?” 

“If you’re not interested in cooperating, I can keep looking for the fugitive without you,” she replied, snatching her goggles and DC-17 from the floor and making towards the exit. 

“Ko Sai isn’t here anymore,” he called after her, stopping her in her tracks. Sol balled a fist in irritation, and turned back towards him. “She’s been gone for a couple of standard hours.”

“You saw her leave?” 

“I sure did.” His smile was just a little smug, and she could _feel_ that he wasn’t telling her the truth, at least not all of it. It was a sense that was as ineffable and clear as the sense she always got of a blaster bolt aimed at her or someone close to her. 

“Why didn’t you stop her?” 

“If I could have, I would have,” he replied with a shrug. “My brother Ordo’s right behind her, though. I was coming back here to check for her data before following him. Am I cooperating enough now?” 

“You were coming back here to see who was coming in behind you,” she contradicted him firmly. Why else would he have left the door open like that? “Luckily for you, we are allies. You should relay your brother’s location to me and my squad. We can assist you in her capture, as that is our objective as well.”

“We’ve got everything under control, _verd’ika._ ”

Without blinking, Sol aimed her blaster at his knee and fired it. Mereel barked in pain, bending over to clutch his knee as his helmet clattered to the ground beside him. 

“Call me that again, _shabuir._ See what happens.” 

“Fine,” he growled, reaching into his belt for a batca patch. “I won’t, kriff. I guess you really are a Mandalorian.” 

“I’m not of the _Mando’ade,_ ” she growled back. “And Clan Skirata knows that Clan Tannor died with my father. Ask Kal about that, the next time someone speaks about me when I’m not there to correct them.” 

“Sure,” Mereel chuckled as he slapped the bacta patch over the sizzling wound on his knee— a graze, nothing severe. A warning shot. “I know a few commandos, myself. Not of the Alpha class, of course, like your boys. But still _verde,_ or close enough.” 

Sol got the distinct feeling that this Null-ARC thought himself well above his clone brothers, which was not very far from how the Null class were described. “My _vode_ are warriors like every other clone in this army,” she said. “I assume that’s why Ko Sai’s information is so important. Because it affects them all directly— including you.”

“You know what she’s supposed to be doing, right?” he asked her as he grabbed his helmet and leaned back against the computer, waiting on the bacta to do its quick work. “What her research was all about?”

“The aging process. I know a Null-ARC was quite interested in the topic as well, a couple months back.” 

He smirked. “Clever, too. I’m getting old, have you noticed? I’ll be thirteen looking thirty soon enough.”

“I know about the acceleration. I for one believe it should be stopped,” she said. At this, something in his face changed. 

“I see we agree on that subject,” he replied. “But that’s something only Ko Sai’s data can accomplish. And Sai herself, or someone as smart as her. That is _my_ objective.”

The way he said it left another impression like the one she got when he said that he’d seen the Kaminoan leave— not a lie, this time, but a motivation. A deeper desire drove his words. 

“You did take all that data from the cloning complex, then, didn’t you?” she asked in a hushed voice. 

“You really have been keeping tabs on me, haven’t you?” Mereel’s smirk was back, all too laid back and familiar for Sol’s taste. “I thought you hadn’t heard of me. Seems like you’re playing hard to get.”

“Stop whatever thought is going through your head before I stop it for you,” she advised him coolly. “If Ko Sai is gone, and you won’t use my help, then I have no choice but to inform command that we’ve lost the target and that you and another Null have taken up the chase.”

“We’ve already informed them that we’re on her trail.”

“Our reports will not conflict, then.” It was hard to tell beneath his impish smile what it was about her words that put him just a little on edge, but she felt the shift. Putting her Deece back in its holster, she pulled her goggles on over her head. “We’re done, here.”

“One more thing,” he said. At that Sol left the goggles on her forehead, looking at him as if to convey how very little of her time and attention he had left to waste. “I know you’re not interested in the _Resol’nare_ anymore, but I wonder if the Shadow Collective is a name that means anything to you.” 

Now she raised a brow at him. “It’s one I’ve heard in less than reputable circles.”

“Have you heard that they’re now based on Concordia?” he asked, and it was like he already knew the response that would invoke for her. Her jaw tightened.

“I’ve heard they’ve assumed control of the Black Sun.” 

“And the Pykes, and the Hutts,” he said, “And, most disturbingly, the _Kyr’tsad._ ” 

If nothing he’d said had left a meaningful impression on her thus far, finally he had struck gold. She could feel the tension in her body, her muscles wrapping around the bones that never stopped aching, the sharpness of her breath telling her that one of his strikes had loosened a rib and now that her breathing was anything more than shallow it was easing its edge into her left lung. But she stood as though nothing in her body hurt, a mask she’d worn in so many years ago she couldn’t remember living without it, wasn’t even sure she could take it off. 

“If Clan Vizsla has finally thrown in their lot with the scum of the galaxy they have so much in common with, that doesn’t concern me.”

“Doesn’t it?” he asked, raising a brow. “Does it not follow that this organization might arise in conflict with the Republic? That your knowledge of the Death Watch might be called upon one day soon enough?” 

“I know nothing about the Death Watch,” she spat. “Except that they’re murderers and zealots.”

“No more so than Dutchess Satine Kryze,” Mereel said, casual as you please, as though they were merely debating the merits of certain Mandalorian ales.

“Kryze is a zealot of pacifism. Both are destructive,” Sol said. “And I care for neither.” 

In that moment, though, she could not help but wonder for the first time what it was that her mother wanted when she helped the Dutchess and Kenobi escape from Mandalore. Her mother, one of a long line of proud warriors just like her father. Devotees of the Death Watch by birth and by oath, and in their different ways both had scorned it before the end.

“You’re wise enough, at least,” Mereel said, and for the first time she thought he might actually be speaking with respect. Skirata had clearly indoctrinated him into Mando ways, but apparently not at either far end of the spectrum. “Well, perhaps this is no news to you. But, in case it turns out to be important later, at least now you know.” 

“Indeed.” She let her golden eyes linger on him a moment longer, sharp as they were, before turning out of the lab and back into the hall and pulling her goggles over her face, cowl over her head. Behind her, she heard him call out.

“ _K’oyacyi!_ ” But she did not look back.

The Null’s words ran through her mind at break-neck pace, repeating as though she were trying to sift meaning out of them each time and coming up empty. What, after all, was she supposed to do with this knowledge of the so-called Shadow Collective? If she’d been able to detain the Falleen girl on Drongar, she might’ve learned more. Might have heard that the Death Watch were now their allies. But the Black Sun had never been her mission. 

There, it had been bota. Now it was Ko Sai, and she was as good as lost. Sol considered asking Mace Windu outright not to send her squad out after the Kaminoan scientist again with any Null-ARC on the same run, because she felt that her objective was stolen out from under her by a couple of snobby clones and their Mando trainer. It stoked the ire that lay ever in her heart towards her lineage, and frankly it was deeply unsatisfying. She was almost as annoyed as Anakin always seemed to be whenever General Grievous escaped yet again. 

Marching through the maze of hallways back towards the exit, she hailed her team to prepare for departure. 

“ _Vod’ika,_ ” came Stone’s voice over the commlink, and there was a tone in it that she did not like. “We’ve got an urgent transmission from General Koon, on the way to the Kadavo system. You should get back here quick.”

Her pace already doubled, Sol frowned. “What’s happening?”

“Just hurry. You’re not gonna like it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey y'all!! welcome to part 3!! this one really gets big, and there's some super wholesome smut, and oh man. i'm just really excited for y'all to read it <3
> 
> hope all you Republic Commando fans were hype to see Mereel in this chapter, too!


	2. retrieval

**_Kadavo, Zygerrian Slave Processing Facility_ **

Rex wasn’t sure how many days he’d been there. The scars from the electro-whips were amassing quickly enough on his back that it felt like ages. But every time he or General Kenobi tried to do anything to protect the other slaves around them, the Zygerrians threw it back tenfold upon both them and the others. He could already tell that Kenobi was stewing inside the closest thing the Jedi had to fury; it was that very training not to indulge such emotions that caused his fury to collapse into despair every time he remembered that it had no outlet here that would not do more harm.

Being a clone meant that Rex was constantly scanning for a way, any way at all, to escape. But the facilities here were tight, an echo of the sheer length of time that the Zygerrian Empire had once prospered through the conduit of slavery. So he went numb most of the day, his body bearing the weight of his labor and the lash of his masters as stoically as it did every other injury. 

He hadn’t been there long enough to give up yet, at least. Every time he saw Kenobi shrink away from a whip, though, his heart got heavier. It was something he felt like no Jedi could bear, the sheer powerlessness of it. Was there a breaking point even for the general? 

And every time he looked up to see a pair of majestic Togruta montrals covered in the filth of the mines, a regal face beneath it heavy and weary with grief and misery, he thought of Ahsoka. He had no idea where she was, what horrors she was being subjected to. There was no way she wasn’t being grievously punished, not with an attitude like hers. He tried to tell himself that Skywalker was with her, and would bring the entire Royal Palace on Zygerria down to save her. It didn’t matter if it was true or not; he needed not to let guilt and despair get to him, not while there was any chance that reinforcements might arrive. 

He’d shoveled the moldy carbohydrate compound into his mouth, pissed in the corner that was the closest thing to a latrine in the slave barracks, and crawled onto his narrow slab of stone to stare at the insides of his eyelids and think. He ran through the same scenarios he always did on a relentless loop, finding no way out that wasn’t contingent on information he didn’t have, reinforcements he couldn’t predict. The exhaustion of it was routine at this point, but for the first time since they’d been dragged here it collapsed into something else. A memory of a pair of golden eyes framed with white lashes and brows in a beautiful brown face. 

It was the first time he’d thought about Sol on this mission. Normally he was focused enough, with the sheer amount of energy and willpower that stealth and fighting required, not to have such thoughts filter past the stone wall of bred-in concentration. He’d been here long enough to start to see that break, too, he guessed. 

But he was so brutally fatigued that he welcomed the memory, hoping it might let him sleep. She was in his arms, and the ripple of hyperspace was dancing in her eyes as she looked up at him. It had been dreamlike, in that tiny alcove that shouldn’t have been there, watching her break down the walls that had held them both back for far too long. They had danced until someone’s commlink beeped, he couldn’t even remember whose or why. That hadn’t been as important as the feeling of her lips against his, or the softness of her cheek, or the sweetness of her breath in his mouth. 

_Rex,_ he thought she said. 

_Sol,_ he tried to reply, but it was like he was underwater.

_What happened down there?_

He blinked, confused. _Down where?_

_On Umbara…_

He was running through the woods, everything in deep purple and blue shadows under the ever-black sky. The only light was from bioluminescent flora, and the occasional glowing creature he had to defend himself and his men from. The entire planet was designed to kill; it was a minor miracle the Umbarans even existed there, much less had the kind of technology they did. He ran, his platoon around him, and suddenly there were more clones ahead running right at him. 

_Wait!_ He was trying to scream, but nobody listened. Blaster bolts pinged blue through the air, and he was forced to shoot back. He kept crying out, but it was like no one could hear him at all. Finally he collapsed next to the body of a trooper he’d shot, pulling off the helmet to reveal the face of Fives. 

_No!_ He crawled over to another; Jesse, lifeless, dead by his hand. One by one he revealed that he’d murdered his entire platoon, and then he saw Waxer die again, and then Echo— that made no sense, he was already dead— and then Cody— and suddenly he was pulling off a helmet, gray and red, and it was Swift. His heart was pounding, the mounting terror starting to drive him into a frenzy. He found each member of Cronos Squad one by one, Twofer and Grip and Stone— as his hands shook, he pulled off the last helmet with its familiar red stripe.

There was Sol, crumpled in the black Umbaran dirt. Her golden eyes stared up at him, lifeless and empty husks of what they’d been by the generators on the _Steadfast._ He took her into his arms, the crown jewel of his extravagant and utter failure, and began to sob. 

“Up, skug!” came the shout that woke him in the morning, jolting Rex from the nightmare. It was the same nightmare he’d had every night since Umbara, but worse. Worse because it had finally added Sol and her team to the blood that was on his hands, taking everything out from underneath him. He was too rattled to react to the slaver, unable to respond except by rolling off his pitiful bunk and doing exactly what he was told until the stiffness of his arms wore off and the first cracks of electro-whips reminded him of the fresh hell he now endured.

It was a pale shade of his nightmares, he thought. He’d take a Zygerrian slave’s fate over murdering everyone he cared about without a second thought. Just as he was beginning to wonder if he was finally giving up, a guard in unusual regalia approached his masters. 

“The Jedi and his friend have been summoned to meet with Master Agruss,” said a gruff voice. Kenobi glanced over at Rex from where he was gripping his shovel. When the General raised an eyebrow at him, the clone captain felt wildly relieved. _There_ was the man he’d fought beside so many times before— and, possibly, a chance to claw their way out of this womp rat’s nest. 

“You! On your feet!” The overt and constant bullying that was the trademark of the Zygerrian slave drivers was more propulsion than either of them needed to stand, receive their leashed shackles, and follow behind the four guards who had come to ferry them. Rex hunched just like Kenobi did, playing the submissive and weary part that had almost become too easy. But they were both crackling with life and vigilant for opportunity. They didn’t even speak, knowing that would just earn them more bruises.

“Wait here,” growled one of the guards, marching up the hallway to a door. “Sir,” he hailed his superior through the commlink at the controls. “The Jedi and the clone are here.” 

_The clone,_ he said. Rex bristled. It had been a long time since anybody had referred to him so condescendingly. 

“Excellent, send them in,” came the rough voice of Agruss, the slave master they’d met upon their arrival on Kadavo. The Zygerrians were feline humanoids, usually quite fierce, but Agruss had the air of a sadistic and overfed loth-cat. The doors opened, and a guard prodded Rex in the back to usher him forward. The prod wasn’t gentle, and the fresh electro-whip lashes on his back made it worse. But he made no sound.

Their chains scraped along the floor as they entered the large central control hub of the processing facility. The air inside of it was fresher than the air in the labor pits, of course, and Rex could now smell his own stench in the tattered Zygerrian palace guard suit he’d appropriated at the start of the mission. It was a strange moment to wish powerfully for even a moment in a sonic shower, but he couldn't quite help it.

“Greetings, General,” Agruss snarled quite gleefully from his repulsorlift chair. “I see the processing facilities have had some effect on you.”

“What do you want?” Kenobi asked; it seemed that malnutrition and tortured coercion made the Jedi’s temper a little shorter than usual. 

“I have received word that your friend Skywalker has caused quite a ruckus at the Royal Palace,” Agruss replied. “It follows, of course, that he is on his way here to rescue you.”

Rex hid his smirk. It was perfectly in-character for his general to do something like that, whether or not it was actually true. 

“That sounds like Anakin, yes,” Kenobi said dryly. 

“When he arrives, I will require you to convey a message to him from Count Dooku. You will tell him that if he does not surrender, all of the Togruta slaves will be executed in his name.”

Well, that was severe enough that Rex now fully believed that he wasn’t lying or messing with them somehow. 

“I’m not sure that will be enough to deter him,” Kenobi said.

“Surely a Jedi would not be complicit in such a slaughter?” 

“You don’t understand. Anakin won’t allow you to get that far before he brings this whole place crashing down on your head, Agruss.” It was impressive how calm and sure the general sounded.

“Then it will be down on your heads as well!” the slave master barked, bearing his teeth. 

“We can handle ourselves.” 

“I’m glad you are so certain, Master Kenobi.”

“I’d still be happy to convey your message for you, of course,” the Jedi added in his trademark blasé tone, the one that mocked as clearly as it pretended not to. 

“Good,” growled Agruss, glancing at the alerts on one of his many console screens. One of them was blinking red. The slaver snarled, bashing a button with his fist. “You will get to speak with him soon.” 

The noises that began very suddenly from outside the massive complex picked up Rex’s spirits even faster than Kenobi returning to his usual degree of sass. That was the sound of laser cannon— which meant that someone had finally managed to get a signal through to call for reinforcements. Barks of reports came in over Agruss’ commlink, guards who confirmed his suspicions, and the distant percussion of plasma shots rumbled through the massive building. 

“Tell him!” barked Agruss at the Jedi, turning on a commlink with a video feed that showed the figure of Skywalker— and another, smaller one, Ashoka!— standing at the ponderous doors at the entrance, the flickering blade of his saber plunging into the metal to render it into orange, bubbling goo. 

While Kenobi conveyed the message with a little more urgency to Skywalker than he had betrayed to the slave master, Rex’s head was running through a thousand little things. He took note of the location of each person in the control room, what weapons were in their hands, the nature of the locks on the doors, which buttons Agruss pressed on what panels to do what. Before he had to figure out anything more, though, a fresh round of laser cannon started. 

Kenobi was turning to him, more fire in his expression than had been there since before this mission started. His glance meant more than clearly that they were about to spring into action. 

Suddenly another rumble came from somewhere else, somewhere deeper within the building. Arguss’ face, which had already been pinched in frustration, fell to shock. His chair spun him around and sped over to another panel of controls. 

“What the _kriff_ was that?” 

“Sir! There’s been an explosion inside the—” The staticky voice that had tried to answer him was cut off with a sound that wasn’t quite blaster fire. 

“Someone REPORT!” snarled the slave master. 

“Sir! The ray shields, they’re down!” came another, panicked voice. 

“What?” 

For just a moment, all of the sounds of rumbling and weapons stopped in a strange, incredibly brief breath. It was like Rex could sense it, knew it was coming, though not in the same way his Jedi general did. Kenobi’s eyes flew towards the heavy doors to the control room, and then he shoved Rex behind and under the large console that was like a table in the center of the room. 

The blast that happened almost as soon as he rolled behind cover was deafening. Shrapnel flew all around them, slamming into the computers and the walls and lodging into a guard or two. And then, a voice called out from behind the vocoder of a GAR helmet. 

“Captain! General!” 

“Sol?” Rex almost couldn’t hear himself for just a moment as the explosion’s aural echoes took a moment to fade from his ears. But he heard her. 

“Now!” Kenobi said, holding his hands up towards Rex in a way that only Jedi tended to do. The electric collar that had been around his neck for far too many days now flew off, and then the Jedi’s followed suit. 

“About time!” Rex grinned, and they both turned to look over the console, Kenobi taking a flying leap into the air. The other guards were all swinging their electrostaffs, and there in the rubble of the entrance was the tiny armored figure of Sol swinging her lightsaber staff as she fought one of them. Dodging around as he saw Kenobi use his still-shackled wrists to knock a guard off his feet, Rex managed to catch another staff just so and felt the metal cleave in two, freeing his hands. As he snatched the grip of the staff when the guard swung it back down at him, he heard Agruss’ distressed snarls— and then Kenobi, who seemed upset with something the slaver was doing, but he wasn’t sure what. One or two other guards were stumbling in from the hall outside, but he looked up just in time to see one of Sol’s spined knees catch one of them in the crotch just before she ducked, spun, and swung one glowing end of her staff through the other’s guts. 

The fight was a melee of punches, redirected electrostaff thrusts, and Kenobi’s Force-assisted acrobatics. Rex took out more than one guard himself, appropriating a staff for his own use from one of the bodies on the floor and not at all bothered by their burbling howls as he shocked them. He found himself in a deadlock with another guard, a big one, and he growled as each of them leaned towards each other with all their might bearing down on the business ends of their staffs. 

At least, until the end of an orange plasma blade suddenly made its way through the guard’s chest from behind, and suddenly it was only dead weight that Rex was battling. The guard tumbled to the floor, staff thudding out of his arms as they both crackled and their power faded. Behind him stood grey and red armor. 

“Nice job breakin’ in,” he said to her with a smirk. 

“We call that rapid entry,” she replied, and he heard the smirk she was throwing back at him. He realized that every Zygerrian except for Arguss was either dead or unconscious at that moment, and turned to the mobile chair where the slave master was backed against the far wall. 

Kenobi was over by a control panel that was issuing plumes of black smoke, also looking with a scowl that was almost furious on his face. It surprised Rex to see it there, the plainest he’d ever seen such anger on the general of the 212th. The Togrutan slaves had to be in big trouble, he thought. Then a blue blade sprang out, evidently recovered by the Jedi while Rex had been busy bashing in the face of one of the guards.

“Now, Kenobi, I know a Jedi won’t kill an unarmed man,” Agruss said, somewhere between gloating and pleading. Rex frowned, and when he caught Kenobi’s look, he knew what to do. Lifting the dead electrostaff in his hand, he lobbed it with all his strength at his captor. 

It struck true, driving through Agruss’ heart hard enough to puncture the back of his chair and send it bobbing around haphazardly on its repulsorlifts until it slammed into another control panel and shorted the screen entirely.

“I’m no Jedi,” Rex growled. 

“Come on, the Wolfpack’s gonna blow this place any minute!” Sol said, turning towards the exit. The two men followed as she made for a smaller passage and guided them down and out of the center of the complex. 

“You got a ride?” called Rex as he ran.

“Of course I do!” 

When they broke out into fresh air, they were in a low open space tucked between parts of the building. There sat the _Titan,_ hatch wide open with Stone looking out from it. 

“Good to see you alive!” he called from under his bucket. “Now let’s go scoop up the others and get outta here!” 

“Couldn’t agree more!” Kenobi replied as they bounded into the shuttle. 

“Are they at RV Delta?” Sol asked her larger squadmate. As he looked at them, Rex realized rather arbitrarily that was more than a foot between them, almost a foot and a half. Yet tiny Sol radiated command, and massive Stone only respectful deference. 

“Yeah, all three of ‘em, believe it or not,” Stone chuckled as he closed the hatch and took huge strides towards the cockpit. “Smoothest extraction I can remember for a while.” 

“I’ll take it,” the sergeant replied, turning to look out the window as the shuttle’s twin ion engines fired and they began to lift off. As they did, they saw outside the viewport a massive Star Destroyer nestled in a precarious place beneath an outcropping of the building. 

“That’s the Togrutans!” Kenobi was almost pressing his nose against the transparisteel. 

“Anakin, are the captives secured on the _Valiant?_ ” Sol asked into her commlink.

“Working on it!” came a labored reply. “You?”

“I got your men right here looking at me.” 

“Knew I could count on you, Sol. Get back to the hangar bay as soon as you’ve picked everyone up!” 

“ _Suvar._ ”

The rest of Cronos Squad was waiting on a much higher rooftop, and Stone hovered in the air while they got tugged into the shuttle one by one. 

“How the hell did you end up all the way up here?” Rex asked as he pulled Grip inside and slapped the button to close the hatch. 

“You don’t wanna know,” Twofer replied, and Rex could almost see his signature raucous grin behind his helmet.

“Oh, I really think I do,” he said, chuckling. 

“We’re heading up, Sarge,” said Stone over the comm. “Be flatfooted in no time.”

“Oh good, I hoped it was Stone who was flying and not you,” Swift joked to Sol as he elbowed her playfully. She pushed him back at the shoulder. 

“Not my fault you have a delicate stomach, _vod!_ ” 

When they landed inside the hangar bay of the Valiant and the engine's rumble slowly died, Sol pulled her helmet off. Rex had been standing close since they’d boarded, and now he looked down at her with a smile. After seeing her lifeless face in his nightmares, the sight of her alive and a little sweaty was such a welcome relief that his heart ached. 

“Sol,” said Kenobi rather suddenly, turning towards her as the hatch slowly opened and the commandos gathered their remaining gear to head out. “I have to thank you. For your help.” 

Rex could feel the strange and sudden tension in the air, the taut string that ran between commando and Jedi that was not offset at all by the unusual use of her first name. There was more behind the Jedi’s words than they belied. He had no notion of what in the galaxy could have caused such a rift, and his eyes darted uneasily between the two. 

Tucking her bucket up under her arm, Sol nodded with the Mandalorian equivalent of professional grace. “Of course, General.” 

“I had hoped that you and I might speak to one another sometime,” Kenobi added delicately. 

“About my mother?” Now Rex’s brow furrowed and confusion descended fully upon him. Sol remained impassive, stoic, but Kenobi seemed almost apprehensive. 

“Yes,” the Jedi said, voice quiet. 

“I have very little cause to speak on that subject, sir.” 

“Perhaps, but I have great cause to do so.” 

Sol paused, and her expression changed. “Why is that?” 

“Dutchess Satine—”

“I don’t have anything to do with Mandalore’s politics, General, and I haven’t since I was five years old,” she cut him off a little sharply. 

“No, it’s not that,” he said. “I just feel that I owe you an explanation.”

“You have nothing to explain, sir. I know my mother helped you, and I know she died for her kindness at the hands of her own people. You owe me no apology for any of that.” 

“Satine was under _my_ protection,” Kenobi insisted. “Your mother should never have had to get involved.”

“Am I to absolve you of your guilt?” she asked, and her face was full of something Rex didn’t quite recognize. “My mother made a choice. I have every reason to believe that she made it on purpose, in full knowledge of the consequences. Even her murderer assured me of that.” 

Kenobi sighed. “Yes, you’re right. She made that choice very much on purpose. But she was your mother, and I think you deserve to know what really happened.” 

Her golden eyes flickered, subdued ever so slightly. “I appreciate your concern, sir. But it is long past, and I have done my best to let it go.”

“Letting go of such a legacy is easier said than done, particularly for a Mandalorian or one who is descended from them,” he replied. “I accept your choice, Sol, but should you change your mind I will always be willing to talk with you about her. Just know that.”

Then that nod again, the one that made her seem even more Mando than she already did. “ _Vor’e,_ General Kenobi,” she said. The Jedi nodded, seeming a little sad, and turned to exit the shuttle. Rex watched him go, then looked over at the diminutive warrior beside him. 

Sol was looking at the floor of the shuttle under her feet, eyes far away. He reached out to touch the buzzed part of her hair gently, and her eyes shut completely. 

“You alright?” he asked in a quiet voice. 

“ _‘Lek,_ ” she sighed, white lashes fluttering as she looked up and out into the busy hangar bay. “I just… wasn’t expecting him to say anything about her.” 

“I dunno how Kenobi knows anything about your mum, but wouldn’t you want to know her story?” he asked carefully. “I know I’m just a clone, but if I had a mother…”

“She’s gone, Rex.” Sol turned to him, her brow creased with sudden fierceness. “I will never get her back. I’ve had nothing but the stories my father told me about her for almost my whole life. That, and pitiful, selfish vengeance. I don’t know why she did what she did, but…”

For the first time since he’d known her, he saw tears flood her eyes. She blinked them away with all the effort she gave everything else, but her lip crumpled. He turned fully to face her, wrapped his arms instinctively, protectively around her with the back of her head and the disheveled bun there cradled in his hand. In the fold of his chest, she took a ragged breath and leaned against him. 

“I’m sorry, _cyare,_ ” he murmured. She shuddered, and he felt her arms come to wrap around him, too. For a moment they stood there, tucked into the quiet bubble of the _Titan_ with the noise outside feeling far away.

“I don’t want to lose her again,” Sol said finally in a hoarse whisper. Pressing his nose into her ear, Rex felt his heart break a little. Whatever it was that she didn’t want to know, it was frightening to her in a way he didn’t think anything else could have been. He kissed her temple.

“I hear you,” he said. “I may not understand, but… losing someone twice sounds like my worst nightmares.” In fact, he thought, it _was_ his worst nightmares. She nodded a little, acknowledging his sympathy— which meant she appreciated it, he knew. Pulling back to look up at him, he saw that a single tear had escaped each of her eyes. 

“Let’s go back to the barracks,” she said. “They’ll debrief us on the bridge once the whole thing with the Togrutans settles down. And, no offense, but you could use a shower.” A grin came over her face, and Rex growled even as he playfully mussed her hair. 

“Listen, the next time _you’re_ in a slave camp for however-kriffing-long, see how beautiful _you_ smell!” 

She was laughing, wiping the faint tear trails from her cheeks. “Oh c’mon, I need one too.”

“Maybe we could take one together,” he grinned, crooking a brow. At that, she started slightly, and seemed a little shocked. 

“Um,” she mumbled, looking away from him despite the smile on her face. “We… I mean, the ship—”

“I’m just teasing,” he said. “I know you wanted to take it slow.”

“Maybe back at HQ.” Now her eyes found him again, and frankly in that moment he wasn’t sure just how slow she’d meant back on the _Steadfast,_ because she seemed awfully… keen. His eyebrows lifted in surprise.

“Oh yeah?” 

She started towards the open hatch, and her glance back at him was coy enough to bring his heartbeat to his ears. “Maybe.” 

He followed her in half a trance out into the spacious hangar, wanting nothing more than to hold her hand as they went. But Sol was a private person to say the least, and he had no idea what regulation would have to say about their little romance. So he filed that away for later. 

Clearly, they had more pressing conversations to have, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was high time Sol got to roll in and rescue Rex lowkey lol. and i think this one is pretty lowkey seeing as he was still in fighting condition when she got there xD


	3. in arms

**_Coruscant, Galactic City, Republic Center for Military Operations, 20BBY_ **

When the _Valiant_ arrived back at the GAR headquarters, the flurry of activity had been enough to send each unit on board in different directions; some to debrief, some to relocate, some to redeployment. It was morning when they arrived, and Sol had only had time to change into a utility jumpsuit before breakfast was served in the mess. She and her squadmates made it just in time to scoop up the last of the meal. 

“So they don’t already have us lined up for another mission, huh?” Twofer said between bites. “They give us any official R&R time?”

“You know even if it’s ‘official’ R&R, that doesn’t mean they won’t officially break it and redeploy us anyway,” Swift pointed out. “You got plans or something, _vod?_ ” 

“Awfully nosy, aren’t ‘cha?” 

“I dunno if you missed it, but he’s always been that way, Twof,” Grip said with a chuckle. “Might as well tell us what you’re up to.” 

“What if I haven’t made any plans, and I’m trying to decide if I should bother or not?” the weapons specialist asked with pouty indignation. 

“Fair enough,” Swift said. “But still. You seem chipper lately.” 

“I’d be more chipper if I knew how many days we’re s’posed to be on R&R,” Twofer said, looking pointedly at Sol. 

“Two days, _vod,_ ” she replied with a knowing little smile. It was obvious to all of them that their brother had some new acquaintance or another that he wanted to get to know better. But she didn’t pry; Twofer had never been overly forthcoming, and Swift would do all the prying for her anyway. 

“Excellent, _ori’vor’e, vod’ika,_ ” he grinned at her. 

“Maker, I gotta figure out what to do for two days,” Swift said, brow crooked in thought. “I might even have some fun.”

“I know I will,” Grip said cheerfully. “I just found this book on gravity wells on the holonet last week. Ever since Moraga, I’ve been so curious.”

“That’s our little bookworm,” Twofer chuckled, rubbing Grip’s head. The medic batted his hand away. 

“Good, you’ll be able to spot if somebody else thinks that trying to create more of them is smart,” Sol said dryly. 

“What about you, Stone?” Swift asked the big clone. “Got any ideas?”

“Not really,” he replied with a shrug. “I plan on taking it easy, mostly.”

“Probably wise, after the past few missions we’ve had,” said Grip. “I know you’re all medically fine, but if you’re anything like me, you’re starting to feel tired.”

“We’re not supposed to get tired,” Twofer said. “We’re Alpha-ARCs.”

“I mean the other kind of tired,” Grip said with a frown. “The kind that doesn’t go away.” 

“Oh, that.”

“Some of us were born with that, _vod,_ ” Sol said. It was a dark joke, of course, but that was what soldiers lived by as much as dry rations, each other, and their wits.

“How’s your pain, little’un?” Stone asked her gently. She glanced up at him where he sat in his usual place beside her. 

“Not bad,” she replied, voice low. “A little extra achy after killing so many slavers, but…”

“Good excuse to have a few aches,” Swift murmured, and the rest of them nodded in agreement. Sol’s cool expression was one they’d started to come to expect when certain subjects arose, and slavery was one of those.

“Can’t say as I have regrets,” she said. “But I did some strength training on the cruiser during the jump, that always helps.”

“Long as you’re taking care of yourself, _vod’ika,_ ” Grip said with one of his easy smiles. “That’s all I ever wanna hear.” She smiled back, and leaned against Stone’s arm. 

“ _Gar shuk meh kyr’adyc,_ ” Swift grinned, poking Sol gently in the side. She rolled her eyes fondly. 

“I will take care of myself, _vode,_ and one day you’ll stop accusing me of forgetting to.”

“Doubt that, but thanks,” Grip replied. “The day I see you actually _let_ someone else take care of you, I might start to worry less. Might.” 

“Speaking of someone taking care of you,” Swift started, and Sol immediately knew where this was going. “How’s the good captain doing? Looked a little the worse for wear, but I guess we can’t be surprised after he spent all that time down on Kadavo.” 

“He’s fine,” Sol said, and she tried to keep her cheeks still. Apparently her efforts were wasted. 

“He sure did seem happy to see you,” Twofer commented, wagging his fork at her and raising an eyebrow. “In fact, he seemed that way before we left the _Steadfast_ last, too. You sure you didn’t take my advice and finally kriffing kiss him?” 

Sol stopped trying to hide her grin and just fell back on putting her hands over her face.

“You did!” Grip exclaimed, clearly excited as he leaned on his elbows onto the table.

“He kissed _me,_ ” she insisted from behind her makeshift shelter, peeking out between her fingers. 

“Even better!” Swift pronounced. “Maker, look at you. You’re adorable!” Finally her hands fell away from her face where she clung to her frail attempts not to become human sunlight. She glanced around the group until her eyes met Stone’s. 

“Little’un, you look so happy,” he said, beaming at her. Sol squeaked, a noise her brothers would have bet money on never once hearing from their sergeant, and leaned into the big clone’s body for one of his massive hugs. Every face around her was plastered in a huge smile— even Twofer, who was playing his part of the jaded older brother right up until Stone spoke those simple, clear words. 

“You _have_ to tell us what happened, you know,” Swift said, feigning seriousness. “It’s required. Pretty sure it’s in the GAR manual, actually.” 

“Pretty sure it’s in the GAR manual that I’m not allowed to, actually,” Sol retorted, but she was still grinning. She had no idea what it said in the manual, and she had no intention of reading it again to find out. “But there’s not a lot to tell. I mean, it happened on the _Steadfast._ ”

“Where?” Grip asked, resting his face in his hands as he gazed at her like he was enraptured by every possible detail. 

“In that little pocket you showed me on the map. The one that’s got the piece of the viewport showing.”

“You said he kissed you?” Twofer said.

“Well, yeah, we were talking… anyway. I told him I’d never been kissed before, so he, um, offered.” She was back to that little embarrassed, overjoyed expression now. There was no reason to explain the mess of Second Moon Temple to them, she thought; it wasn’t as important as what had come of it, after all, at least not to her.

“How was it?” Swift asked. 

“You are _so_ nosy, _vod!_ ” 

“I just— it’s your first! I wanna make sure you’re happy about it!” 

“Does she look unhappy?” Twofer asked, grinning. 

“It was… _kandosii'la,_ ” she sighed. “We were there for a while.” A chorus of _oooohs_ made its way around the group, and Sol tucked her head into Stone’s arm bashfully. 

“I guess all that trauma in the jungle really shook you two out of your denial, or whatever it was,” Twofer said with mischief.

“Play innocent if you want, Twof, but I know you told him about _shereshoy,_ ” she retorted, and the teasing edge in her voice was softened. 

“Well, I thought he might relate,” was all the weapons specialist said in reply.

“As long as he’s kind to you, _vod’ika,_ ” Stone hummed. 

“He’s very kind, and very gentle.” The look in her eyes when she said it sent a little sparkle through every one of her _vode_ ’s chests. Not every first kiss or even first crush was serious business, but the pools of gold almost seemed to shimmer more brightly in her face when she spoke.

“So, just kissing? Nothing else?” Swift asked, and dropped his impish tone in favor of simple brotherly interest.

“No, not yet.” 

“Are you nervous?” Grip asked, all sincerity. 

“Kinda,” Sol replied with a shrug that didn’t quite shake off the combination of excitement and anticipation she felt whenever she thought about it.

“You do know how sex works, right?” Twofer seemed more concerned than anything.

“Yes, _vod,_ I know how sex works,” she said flatly, and Swift snorted. “I’ve just… it’s a whole. Process. That I’ve never done any of.”

“Maybe you should talk to him about it,” Swift suggested. “Rex seems like an understanding sort.” 

Sol chewed her bottom lip. “I did tell him I wanted to go slow.”

“Listen, you’re better off being honest no matter what, Sol _’ika,_ ” Twofer said. “Just talk with him each step of the way.” She met his eyes at this unusually earnest word, and nodded faintly. 

“ _‘Lek,_ you’re right. It’s just, you know, a little overwhelming. But I mean, it’s nice, too.” 

“It sounds nice,” Grip said dreamily. “And also overwhelming,” he added immediately, his usual aversion to sexual intimacy replacing his enthusiasm for Sol’s little romance.

“Just don’t hurry yourself if you’re not ready,” Swift chimed in. “Even if Rex is a perfect angel, don’t put pressure on yourself. We want your first experiences to be good ones.” He reached out to rub Sol’s shoulder, to push a little reassurance into her muscles. 

“ _Ori’vor’e,_ ” she said. Then her face changed, still sheepish but unusually soft and open. “… I really like him, Swift.”

“I know you do.” He smiled. “I guess we only know him as well as any soldier knows another soldier he’s fought next to, but Rex seems like an awfully decent man. I’m glad you chose him.” 

“I dunno if I chose him,” she murmured. “I just… he was just… you know.” 

Twofer was chuckling. “Yeah, we know.” For a moment, Sol leaned against Stone’s chest and sighed, and every member of Cronos Squad sighed with her.

“Well, I’m worn out,” Grip said. “I’m gonna see about a nap. We could play ball after.”

“Good idea,” Twofer nodded. They all rose, ambling in a well-knit pack to put away their trays and exit the mess hall. Sol felt her chest seem to sink with a weight that was surprisingly comfortable there, the sense of family she felt with her squad never more abundant than when they fretted over her and Rex. Slowly, it was beginning to feel less and less invasive to have them all prying at her like they did. 

As they made their way towards their barracks, she saw two figures standing outside of the 501st’s wing, talking in hushed tones. It took only a moment for her to recognize Fives, and then the light caught his tattoo and she knew Jesse was with him. Just as they drew close enough to possibly hear, Jesse turned and went into the building to leave his brother standing alone in the shadow of the covered walkway. 

“Hey, Fives,” Sol said, taking a few steps to get ahead of her group. “You okay?” 

“I’ve been better,” he replied, not bothering to conceal the heavy expression on his face. 

“You wanna play a little bolo or somethin’?” Swift asked as he approached. 

“Nah, thanks brother,” Fives replied, shaking his head. “It’s not that kinda day, for me.” 

“Well, if you change your mind…”

“I know your comm number,” said the ARC trooper with a halfhearted smile. 

“Is it Umbara?” Sol asked softly. Fives’ expression darkened.

“Rex told you, huh?”

“He didn’t tell me much, actually. I think he’s still trying to deal with it himself.” 

Now he looked at her as though he was worried about giving something out that Rex didn’t want out, but that worry seemed to fade as quickly as it arose. “I can’t get into it all right now. But… Krell almost had me and Jesse executed for treason,” he said finally, voice low. 

“Kriffing hell!” Grip exclaimed, hushing his volume mid-word. “I’d hoped that was a rumor!” 

“Clearly it didn’t work out, at least,” Twofer said. 

“Barely,” Fives sighed. “I thought my brothers were gonna fire on me, for a second there. But they all seemed to miss.” 

“Funny how that happens,” Sol said quietly. “I’m sorry, Fives. I can’t believe that doesn't stay with you.” In that moment, she found herself wondering if anyone in the Death Watch had regretted executing her mother the way these men would have regretted following such an order. She knew the clones better than her ancestral people; it didn’t surprise her that apparently defying orders was well within Torrent Company’s capacity to do if the orders were poisoned.

“Yeah, well.” Fives wasn’t looking at her, and his shoulders slumped. “It’s taking me a moment to gather myself after that, I suppose.” 

“You’re always welcome in our bunk if you need company,” Stone said. Fives looked up at him, always a little baffled by his size, and his smile was less perfunctory than the last one. 

“Thanks, brother.” 

As the others turned to leave, Sol lingered a moment. She wasn’t sure what it was she was feeling, but she knew that he hadn’t laid bare the entire story. There was probably a reason for that other than the semi-public setting. Apparently, she was right, because Fives spoke first.

“We lost Hardcase down there. He died trying to get us out of the situation Krell never shoulda put us in,” he said. There was a familiar pang in Sol’s chest, a pain that burned bright when men she knew were lost to the inanity of war. 

“In Mando’a, we say _nu kyr’adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la._ It means he’s not gone, but merely marching away,” she offered.

“You ever wonder what’s next?” Fives asked. “Where someone goes when they die?” 

She shook her head. “I always figured I’d find out eventually. That’s sort of a Mandalorian thing, I guess.” 

“Can’t say as it gave me much pause either, ‘till recently. Just lost a lot of brothers, lately. And a traitor Jedi…” He shut his eyes, a faint shudder coming over him. “I still haven’t been able to understand that. How a Jedi could just do that. I thought they were trained from birth to be good. But Krell wanted all of us dead, and he wanted Umbara lost. He wanted the _Republic_ to lose.”

“Believe me when I say that the power a _jetii_ wields is the kind that can make it easy to make bad decisions,” she replied, glancing away for a moment. “Whatever his reason, he was defeated by you and your men. That’s important, and it shows that together we’re stronger than we think.” 

Before the clone could respond, a chirp came from Sol’s wrist comm. She frowned and lifted it to her face. 

“Sol!” came Anakin’s voice cheerfully when she opened the link. “Are you busy today?”

Fives’ eyebrow raised high and he seemed almost to smirk at the idea that his unpredictable general would be butting into the commando’s life, too. 

“Well, not yet,” she replied into the commlink. “What do you need me to come fix for you?” 

“Very funny. Actually, Senator Amidala and Senator Organa want to meet with you. They want to escort you to meet the Chancellor, in fact.” 

Now her brow furrowed. “Um, did they say why?” 

“I assume it’s about the bill. I told them that I’d be part of the escort if I could find you.” 

“Uh, when?”

“We can go anytime! Nowish would be better, since I have to debrief later today. If you wanna come up to the offices, we can head to the Senate District.” 

“Sure, I’ll be there once I go get my shoes,” Sol said, glancing down at her perpetually bare feet. 

“Of course,” Anakin laughed. “I’ll wait here.”

“ _Jat._ ” She closed the commlink. “That’s a little strange,” she said, looking back at Fives. “Why would the Chancellor want to meet me?”

“Beats me,” he replied with a shrug. “I’ve never met the guy. Might be because you were the one who started talkin’ about the clone bill?”

“I guess that makes sense. I’d better go get my boots.” 

“Yeah. Thanks, Sol.”

“For what?” she asked, canting her head. 

“For saying hello. You and your squad. I reckon I needed it,” he replied, giving her a weary smile. “I’ve had a hell of a week.” 

Sol smiled and held out her hand for him to clasp, the way she always did with the soldiers who felt like family. “Anytime,” she said.

Taking her hand and giving it a little tug in a way that reminded her of Cody more than anyone else, he nodded. “Same to you.” 

As she turned to head to her bunk before she embarked on another trip to the Senate, Sol threw the ARC Trooper a final wave and hoped that whatever he’d left out of his tale wasn’t something that was weighing too hard on his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do you mean 'foreshadowing' i never...


	4. formalities

_**Coruscant, Galactic City, Republic Senate Building** _

There was an unusual feeling of tightness in Sol’s chest as she strode alongside Anakin through the halls of the Senate offices. The more usual radiant ache from her joints was there, too, but this almost registered as anxiety— not the kind she felt about Rex, the only other form of latent nervousness that seemed to plague her. This was different, more nebulous. She thought it might have been a feeling trickling in through that strange other sense that the Force, by its fickle whims, granted her. But, too, there was a persistent mistrust of authority on such a grand scale that had been ingrained into her bones from the day she was born, that might’ve been in the blood of every member of the Death Watch, maybe every Mandalorian. Survival in the Outer Rim required its own set of rules not dictated by the opulently dressed senators here in their cloud of committees and votes, as did operating as a commando in the GAR. The laws might have been there, but who was to enforce them when it came down to life and death, to mission and survival? 

“Good morning, Sol,” said Senator Amidala as they approached her office. The elegant lady was waiting outside the door, and the tall and gentle-aired Senator Organa with her. “I hope you’re well.”

“I am, thank you, Senator,” she replied with a nod, remembering to use basic.

“I have to thank you for your brave service to the GAR, after hearing about what happened on Kadavo,” Organa said, stepping out to offer her his hand. Sol shook it. 

“Just doing my job, sir.”

“Doing a hell of a job, too,” Anakin chimed in, clapping Sol’s shoulder. “Wish I could’ve got the call out to you and the Wolfpack back on Zyggeria, I bet we could’ve cleaned up that entire situation much quicker.” 

“Maybe you should take notes about stealth ops from me and my men sometime, General,” Sol replied with a smirk. 

“Alright, pipe down,” the Jedi chided her; his tone was playful, but she sensed the pout in it too. “You should be on your best behavior for the Chancellor.” 

“I will, I promise. Did he give a reason he wanted to meet me?” Sol directed her question at the two Senators, brow creased. 

The way Amidala’s face fell, her eyes already a harbinger of her condolences, surprised her. “I’m sorry, Sol. The bill was defeated last night,” the Senator replied. 

“Oh…”

“That’s only the first time we’ve presented it to the Senate,” Organa added quickly. “Please rest assured that we’ll present it again, this time with more study of the concerns of the senators taken into account. It seems we’ll have to ease them into it. We’ve done this before with other bills.” 

“What were their concerns?” Sol asked, and the crease in her brow deepened. 

“We don’t have time to get into it right now,” Amidala said, gesturing for the group to start down towards their destination. “But we can talk more later.” 

“I understand,” nodded Sol, falling in with her escort. Her frustration and the slightly crestfallen curtain that had fallen over her heart must’ve been clear at least to Anakin, because he put his hand on her shoulder much more gently this time. 

“I’m sorry, Sol. But don’t give up. Sometimes it takes a few efforts to get a bill through the Senate,” he said quietly to her. “The Chancellor might be willing to help, too. He's a good man.” 

She nodded again, but made no reply as they went along the opulent halls towards a set of doors that did not seem so very different from all the others, aside from the two silent and stone-still Senate guards that flanked either side of it. They slid open to reveal an office that was open and airy, a large transparisteel window opening out on the eternally bustling veins of life that coursed through Coruscant. Shallow steps led up to a slightly higher platform before it, where a desk and several chairs sat with a central holoemitter beside them. 

Behind the desk was a pale-skinned human man with thinning white hair, wrapped in a dark robe and apparently attended by a Chagrian, blue and horned with a stern look on his face to rival even Mace Windu’s, Sol thought. He stood by the desk with a tall golden staff in his hand, and the older man rose as they approached. 

“Ah, Senators,” he greeted them with a smile that wrinkled his eyes and cheeks, holding out his hands in welcome. “General Skywalker,” he added, nodding to Anakin who smiled back, “and this must be Sergeant Tannor herself!” 

“Sergeant, this is Supreme Chancellor Palpatine and Vice Chancellor Amedda,” Amidala said to Sol, encouraging her to step in front of her companions with a little nod. 

“So good to meet you at last.” Palpatine was smiling directly at her now, and he seemed pleased enough. The tightness in her chest had not abated, of course— these were the beings who ran the entire Republic. She was uncertain how she’d ended up here in his office, even still, with her whole life spent tucked as far under any government’s scanners as she could get. 

“Thank you for inviting me here, Chancellor,” she replied, giving her Mandalorian nod. 

“Of course, my dear,” Palpatine replied, holding his hands before him. “I desired to know who was the progenitor of such a forward-thinking bill, and imagine my surprise when it was not our own Senator Amidala!” He chuckled at the other young woman. “She is so forward-thinking herself. I am very sorry that its first passage through the Senate was unsuccessful, Sergeant.”

“I understand that these things are not always accomplished in the first attempt,” Sol replied.

“No, quite often they are not,” Palpatine confirmed. “Please, have a seat while we talk.”

The other chairs on the platform were positioned to face the desk. Sol watched a moment as the others took to their perches, and Anakin urged her with a raise of his eyebrows to follow suit. It did not escape her notice that, though the desk and chairs all sat on the same floor, the Chancellor’s seat was just above the others in its elevation. Not that such a thing was unexpected or even unreasonable, given the status of the position, but it was in contrast to the Jedi Council’s chamber which she recalled due to the absolute evenness of their seats in spite of rank. She lowered into a cushioned chair without quite taking her ease. 

“We intend to continue to work on the bill and present a revision to the Senate once we have one that’s acceptable,” Organa said. “I believe it is too important to the moral health of the Republic to let such an issue die in light of others.”

“I would like to know what the Senators found fault with,” Sol piped up, feeling herself bristle a little more this time than last time. 

“A great many of their worlds have been occupied by the Grand Army of the Republic, some for the duration of the war,” Palpatine said. “Some of them are grateful for this, as we’ve been able to protect them from the Separatists. Others have found that accommodating soldiers and the inherent conflict of the situation are unfavorable to them. I suppose I cannot blame them, but it can be hard to explain how much worse being occupied by Separatists would be.” 

“Does it cost these worlds anything more than they already have, to allocate these men personhood?” Sol’s tone was steady, more neutral, her question genuine. She did not linger long on most planets, not the way some of the battalions did. More than once, now, her squad had been called upon to end prolonged fighting. 

“They’re more concerned about what will happen after the war,” Amidala said to her. “About the cost to the Republic of retirement for the clones, or whether or not we should maintain armed forces during peacetime just in case some other threat arises.” 

“And what about the citizen rights for soldiers now?” She looked between the others in the room, even Amedda as he stood off to the side. “What about their burial rights, and leave time, and commission?” 

“All of these are areas of concern,” Palpatine said, folding his hands over the desk.

“Yes, sir, they are, and that is why I brought them up in the early draft of the bill with these Senators,” Sol replied, reigning in the ice that wanted to creep into her tone. “They are clear and present concerns for the men themselves already.” 

“It’s been hard to offer much in the way of R&R, much less leave,” Anakin chimed in. “Not because we don’t want to, but because there’s so much fighting. The men are needed too badly.” 

Her eyes landed on Anakin with a hard veil over her surprise— and displeasure— at his defensive statement, though she knew he would feel them anyway. “I am well aware of that, General. I do not take leave, myself. But even men bred for war are worn down eventually, and having something aside from grim death to look forward to is a fundamental right of any being.”

“We all agree with you, Sergeant,” Amidala assured her gently. 

“All of the people in this room, or all of the Senate?” 

The silence that greeted her in response to the question did not surprise Sol in the least. “Believe me, if we could talk all of them into treating the clones like any other being, we would,” Anakin said to her. “But it’s not that easy. They don’t know the men like you and I do, Sol.” 

“Of course not,” Palpatine chimed in. “Many of them have never seen anything approaching a battlefield. They cannot fathom the strength and bravery of the clones.” 

“Perhaps they need more exposure to the realities of war, then,” replied Sol grimly. “Regardless, this is about principle. It’s not every clone’s obligation to accept leave time, but it _is_ the Republic’s obligation to offer it.”

“I couldn’t agree more, dear,” Palpatine said, his face drawn in a sad smile. “Tragically it is no simple feat to adjust any being’s mindset. So we must approach those who cannot agree with us from other angles and hope that will work instead.”

“I understand.” Sol let her hackles drop a little; truly, she did know that it was nearly an impossible feat to change someone else’s view. It had been hard enough for her to change her own. “I suppose I simply hoped for better from those who have guided the galaxy for twenty-five thousand years.”

“The concerns of the Senate have changed greatly in that time, and will continue to do so,” Organa said. “But there will always be those of us who call for right action, and we cannot give up on the hope that our calls will be heard. There are still many Senators who agree with us.”

“I appreciate your dedication to this, Sergeant Tannor,” the Chancellor said, looking at Sol with keen eyes in his otherwise rather fragile-seeming face. “I hope you believe that we will not let this matter rest.”

Amidala was nodding. “We just appreciate you taking a stand on the clones’ behalf.”

“Meanwhile the Jedi will lead the army in the best way we know how, and hopefully we can continue to show just how valuable the clones are,” Anakin chimed in. “You know that as well as anyone here.”

His defense of the Order rang a little hollow to Sol in that moment, though it was well-meant. “The _Jetiise_ have been warriors for thousands of years,” she said. “I have no doubt that they will honor the sacrifice of these men as their own.” 

“We’re not warriors,” Anakin said. “We’re peacekeepers.”

Sol side-eyed him ever so subtly. For the first time, the young knight who had understood her so well seemed almost naïve. “If you were not fighting the Sith, you were fighting with the _Mando’ade,_ General.”

“Yes, in an attempt to keep the peace.” He frowned at her. “The problem is that both the Sith and the Mandalorians don’t really care for peace.”

“As I know better than anyone here.” She returned his look with a hardened face, something sharp lurking behind it. But it was not Anakin she was angry with, so much as his blind faith which seemed so anachronistic in light of the number of times he’d defied the Council, or criticised them in her presence. The tension in the room ran like an inaudibly high whine through the air. 

“Speaking of Mandalorians,” Palpatine began, drawing Sol’s gaze back to him, “I am told you are a descendent of those mighty people, Sergeant.”

“My parents were _Mando’ade,_ yes. But my father spurned his heritage, and my mother died when I was very young.” Sol was used to this tiresome disclaimer by now, and would have skipped it entirely had she not given her word to behave in front of such a distinguished host.

“Is that why you ended up here, serving the Republic?” 

“No. General Windu found me some years ago after my father’s death, and took me in as his ward.”

One eyebrow climbed up on the Chancellor’s head, and Sol got the impression that this was the most proactive interest he’d shown the entire meeting. “A ward of the Jedi?”

“Yes. I was trained for the Temple Guard, though I was unsuccessful. It appears I am better suited to the army.” 

“So then you are a user of the Force?” He seemed surprised, and glanced over to Anakin as if asking for confirmation. But the General was looking over at the commando still, as though recovering from their moment of strained communication.

“Only a very little,” Sol said. “Far from the skill of a Jedi.” 

“Still!” Palpatine smiled, as though delighted. “It appears you are an endlessly singular young woman, Sergeant Tannor. I can only be grateful to have such a person serving in the Grand Army of the Republic. I shall have to issue my thanks to High General Windu when next we meet.” He rose from his chair, and the company rose with him. “Now, my dear, I must see to my other duties. But I commend you for the work you have begun here, and will see to its continuation to the best of my abilities.”

“Thank you for your support, Chancellor,” chimed in Amidala with a smile. 

“Always, dear Senator,” he replied, approaching her to take her hand and pat it gently and with unsteady hands that had just begun to claw with age. He shook Organa’s hand, then put his hand on Anakin’s shoulder. The ardent way that the Jedi returned his smile struck Sol; his feelings were never hard to guess even for her, but it was the first time she’d ever seen him so plainly admire and trust anyone. Even the elder Jedi didn’t merit Anakin Skywalker’s deference to such a degree.

Sol realized that the Chancellor was approaching her next, and at the same moment felt a sudden and intense aversion to touching him. She did not care for touch from strangers overmuch and never had, her joints and ligaments always jumping with pain in response to touch she couldn’t trust. This time the feeling was surprisingly strong, though, which she thought must be due to his rank in a social echelon that had never been her own. 

But his hand was reaching towards her, and she was trying to push through her hesitation to take it. Best behavior, she told herself.

To her great relief, though, the moment was interrupted by the deep voice of Amedda speaking at last, drawing Palpatine’s attention away from her.

“Sir, you have an urgent message on the holo,” the Vice Chancellor said, and though his tone was measured there was an archness in it that Palpatine seemed to pick up on. He whirled on the desk and looked down at the screen that was embedded in it. 

“My apologies, all, but I must see to this matter immediately,” he said, not looking away from the screen. 

“Is everything alright?” Anakin asked in his brash way.

“Yes, for now, but I would see to this in private. If trouble arises, rest assured the Jedi will know first.”

“That’s alright, sir, we’ll leave you to it,” Amidala said, urging Anakin away from the desk and down the stairs. Sol was already retreating, Organa alongside her; they all shuffled out into the hallway with Amedda watching them depart like a guard dog. The actual guards said and did nothing as the group moved away, back towards the Naboo senator’s office. 

“I hope that was reassuring,” Organa was saying to her as Sol ran through what had just happened in her head. 

“Oh— yes, it was, thank you Senator.” 

“I believe the Chancellor will lend us his aid in reintroducing the bill again soon,” Amidala said earnestly, turning towards Sol as they approached her office doors. “In fact, I plan on making a list of the concerns that were aired while the vote was going on tonight, and evaluating what can be addressed while compromising as little of the original bill as possible. I may need to round up more support from other systems to attempt to address the issues, but it wouldn’t be the first time.” 

The chorus of reassurances was starting to grate on Sol’s nerves, for no reason that she could divine at that moment. It was just a song-and-dance, it felt like, to hear it over and over. She trusted the two Senators here to keep their word, but nothing about the time she’d spent there in the Senate building felt especially productive. And there was a blinking light on her wrist comm, which was either her squad or Rex, that she would rather have been attending to. 

“ _Vor’e,_ Senator Amidala and Senator Organa. But as I’m not involved more deeply in this process, I believe I’d better leave you to it,” she said evenly, giving each of them a nod. Before she could turn and make her way out of the domed building, Anakin spoke. 

“Sol, I’m sorry if I seemed a little on edge in there,” he said, and she stopped. It was nice that he’d acknowledged it, she thought. Maybe she’d thrown him on his back heel a little.

“It’s alright, Anakin. I understand your faith in your Order is strong. And your dedication to it is a good thing.” She smiled faintly at him, and he returned it.

“You need me to take you back to HQ?” he asked.

“Nah, that’s alright. I’ve been here twice now, I can get home.”

“Alright.” He nodded. “I’ll remain here to clear up some business of my own.” 

“Don’t get abducted by any more slave traders,” she said with a grin, nudging his arm with her elbow. 

Anakin chuckled and nudged her back. “I’ll do my best, boss.” 

As she took her leave, Sol felt a little far away from both her body and her surroundings, like everything was coming through a bit of a fog. The encounter had left a bad taste in her mouth, but she wasn’t sure why. Sure, the simpering of politicians was distasteful to any Mandalorian and most soldiers in general. Their etiquette and protocol wasted time and obscured the frank communications that kept one alive on the battlefield. But for whatever reason, this feeling of unease moved her on a deeper level, too. Something about the aversion she’d felt towards the Chancellor’s extended hand, weathered with age and ostensibly harmless as it was, nagged at her without forming into words.

As she was riding in a cab back towards the barracks, she was so lost in thought that she forgot the blink of her comm. This time it chirped, knocking her into the present.

“Hey, Sarge,” came a familiar voice. “You hiding from me?” 

“No, Rex,” she replied with a smile. “I was rushed away on an errand with your General.” 

“Oh, really?” He seemed curious, but she didn’t answer, so he carried on. “You coming home anytime soon?” 

_Home._ The word struck her, the first time she’d thought about it in connection with the GAR. With her squad. With Rex. Did it even matter where he was, if he was the one asking?

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Actually heading home now, _alor’ad._ Why, did you have something you needed me to fix?” 

“ _Verd’ika,_ you’re the only one who can fix what I’ve got.” 

Sol shut her eyes, grinning as she held in a laugh. “That bad, huh?” 

“It’s pretty bad.” The playfulness in his voice was cut with something a little more… hungry. She pinched her knees together as a desire that had started to pester her more and more since their necking on the _Steadfast_ came over her yet again. 

“Guess I better come back quick, then.” 

“Please, come right over.”

“Don’t fall apart before I get there _._ ” 

“I’ll do my best.” 

The commlink shut off, and Sol’s cheeks almost hurt from smiling. Chewing on her inside lip, she thought about Rex’s hands on her face, the way they ran calloused and gentle down her neck, or around her waist while they danced. 

They did have a few things to talk about, didn’t they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just HAD to write a scene with Palps... even if you're not actually writing his POV, you just KNOW all the evil goblin shit going through his head and it's so much fun to write xD


	5. shereshoy

**_Coruscant, Galactic City, Republic Center for Military Operations_ **

Rex made his way up to the offices while he was awaiting Sol’s return, dropping off a datachip and finalizing some requisitions orders in an effort to clear out everything else he could rationalize thinking about that wasn’t her. His heart was already pounding with something that was a little more acute than what he usually felt, something that wanted her more than ever. Maybe it was watching her expertly and powerfully take down one tall, snarling Zygerrian after another. Maybe it was the sense of urgency that had accompanied her movements, the lack of her usual methodical precision, the way she fought her way to him. Rescuing him wasn’t something he’d considered on his list of highly attractive traits in another person, but it certainly did seem to be driving a need through him right now. 

He wandered back out onto the breezeway when he was done, watching where he knew she would emerge once she’d made her way out of the street platform. It wasn’t quite impatience that he felt; he could have, and would have waited all day for her. But the anticipation was surprisingly strong, as though he’d never even kissed her before. 

“Rex?” came a voice, and he whirled to find that Ahsoka was standing there at the exit of the office building. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t you be taking a break, after everything that just happened?”

“I’m on R&R, sir,” he replied. 

“Yeah, but you were just inside here at your desk,” she pointed out. “You’re always doing that when you’re on R&R. It’s not resting just because you’re in your fatigues.”

“I was just getting a few things put away so I could enjoy the rest of my day-and-a-half without thinking about them.”

The Togruta raised a brow at him and crossed her arms, shifting her weight to one hip as she always did when she was feeling sassy. “Okay, Captain Workaholic, what are you planning on doing for the next day-and-a-half?”

Rex was about to reply that it was none of her business, sir, but then he caught her eyes shift behind him and focus on something else. Turning, he saw the figure of Sol heading down the breezeway. Her jumpsuit was half-off, tied around her waist so the beams of sunlight could land on her arms. She smiled when their eyes met. 

“Hey, Sarge!” he called. “Fancy meeting you here.” 

“Hi Sargeant Tannor,” Ahsoka added, glancing between the two of them. 

“Commander,” said Sol as she approached, nodding in that way she always did. “It’s been a while since we spoke. How are you?” 

“Oh, I’m alright, considering how I just escaped enslavement in a Zygerrian capital city and everything. Thanks for coming to help out, by the way.”

“Of course.” The commando’s expression was usually stoic, even serious when she wasn’t outright laughing. But at that moment, Rex saw, her face softened not just to smile at him but also towards Ahsoka. “I’m glad you’re here, Commander. I’ve been wanting to speak to you since Moraga.” 

“What about?” Ahsoka asked, head canting just a little.

“About what happened when we were in the bacta tanks,” Sol explained, glancing up at Rex. “You heard me.” 

“Oh.” The young Padawan seemed to understand, but Rex wasn’t sure. His brow furrowed, looking over at Sol’s golden eyes. “I… I guess I did. Did you do that on purpose?”

“I remember I was trying to reach out to anyone who could hear me. But I had no idea if it would work, and it was hard to keep it up when I felt like I was trapped inside of my own nightmares,” Sol said “I thought I saw Anakin, but no matter how much I called to him, he didn’t seem to hear me.” 

“Yeah, he did tell me that he was too much in his own thoughts that day,” Ahsoka replied with a nod. “I just… did the right thing, I guess. I could tell you were both in pain.”

“ _Vor entye._ ” Sol’s nod was slower than usual this time, and she held her head lower for just a moment. “I accept a debt to you. I want you to know that if you ever need me, I will help you.”

Ahsoka’s smile was sincere, if a little bewildered. “But Sergeant, you’re one of us. A soldier of the Grand Army. And I’m a Jedi. You don’t owe me anything for helping you.”

“This extends beyond the call of duty. It’s not a debt to you as an officer, but as a person.” 

Rex was a little surprised too, now. This seemed to mean a lot to Sol, and maybe it was more a vestige of her Mandalorian heritage than anything else. He couldn’t remember anything happening inside the tanks during the long, harrowing journey of recovery from Second Moon Temple. Hell, he barely remembered being inside it in the first place. 

“Oh,” the Padawan said. She seemed to decide that it wasn’t worth it for her to press on with her point. “I understand. I guess if I ever need anything, I’ll call you.” 

“Sounds like I owe you some thanks, too, sir,” Rex said, offering the Torgruta a smile. 

“Don’t worry about it, Rex,” she replied with a sharp-toothed grin. “Wouldn’t have been the first or last time I saved you.” 

“Alright,” he muttered, “cool off, kid.” He glanced over and saw that Sol was grinning, too. “I think it’s high time I got back to my R&R, don’t you?” 

“Yeah, actually.” Ahoska held out a hand the drifted back towards the barracks end of the breezeway. “Go right ahead.”

“Gee thanks, Commander.” Rex rolled his eyes fondly, then turned to Sol. “You comin’ with?” 

“ _Jat,_ ” she said, falling in beside him as they started to walk. The captain elected to ignore the way his commanding officer’s brow quirked as she watched them file away with a little smirk. 

“Rest up!” Ahsoka called. 

“We will!” Rex called back, not quite turning his head far enough around to make eye contact with her. The walk was quiet until the pair of them turned down between the buildings and the Jedi was out of sight. “So, what was that all about?” he asked.

“Do you not remember the pain after Moraga?” Sol asked, looking up at him.

“Oh, I remember,” he replied, holding back a grimace. “But then it got better.”

“We were in bacta. But we needed the Jedi healers. I remember trying to use the Force to find someone, anyone who would take us to them.” 

“I thought we were unconscious for five days or something. Did you wake up?”

“Not really,” she said. “Ahsoka heard me, though. I saw a flash of her in my visions, and it wasn’t long after that that the paint stopped.” 

“I see.” 

They were approaching the 501st’s wing, and Rex was wondering just how much Force stuff this tiny girl could really do— and more than that, he wondered why she only seemed to have a touch of what the Jedi had in abundance. Or did she have much more, and simply refused to try and use it? 

But then, she’d always been anxious about using it in anger. If she had other more Jedi-like skills, but was afraid to use them lest she lose control or fail, it wasn’t like he could blame her. 

“Come on inside with me,” he urged her softly as they approached the doors. The look she gave him betrayed her interest, even as she tried to keep herself measured. 

“Is this where your problem is?” she asked, smirk at the corner of her mouth.

“Oh, the problem’s always with me,” he purred, “but here’s as good a place as any to see if we can’t fix it.” 

Suppressing a giggle, she followed behind him into the cool and presently quiet halls of the barracks. They slid up to his private room in the junior officer’s hall without catching the errant glance of any other clone. Rex knew exactly what his boys would do if they saw them, and while it would all be in good fun, he wasn’t in the mood. 

“Here,” he said, taking her hands once the door was shut. “Come lay with me?” He could feel her somehow tense and brighten at the same time, like her excitement and nervousness bled together. The urgency that he’d felt earlier had had time to become tempered by the worries that kept it reigned in before. But here it was safe, and they could talk about anything they needed to. Sol’s golden eyes and white hair caught the daylight in a sparkling glimmer as it streamed in from the high, narrow window. 

Rex drew her down onto the bed, watching her stifle a giggle as he pulled her towards him. Soon she was in his arms, head on his chest, and the only complaint he had was that he couldn’t stare into her face from that angle. But he didn’t complain, only nestled his face against her soft white hair. For a moment, all was quiet, and the weight of her against him was the only thing keeping him on the ground. 

“Rex?” she asked, voice soft. “Have you… ever slept with someone with an A1-type sex?”

It was kind of funny, he thought, that she used the GAR medical chart designations for biological sex to communicate, but only because nobody else ever had. And in all fairness, it worked. He felt distantly grateful she hadn’t said a non-human designation; then, he’d be really lost, because nobody had time to memorize every sex designation in the galaxy. Even the doctors had droids for that.

“I have to say, I appreciate your directness,” he said, almost laughing. “But, no. I haven’t. Just another B1-type.”

“So just your lost love?” 

“Yes, just him. If you’re suggesting that I don’t really know what I’m doing either, by the way, you’re… almost right. I mean, I’ve learned some things. Theoretically.”

“What about Ferroans?” 

He froze. Had he ever even _met_ a Ferroan? Was that where she got her strange hair and eyes from? Was she not completely human? 

“Uhh...”

“I’m just teasing you,” she giggled. “Ferroans are more or less the same as humans.” 

“ _More or less?_ ”

“I’m only a fourth Ferroan!” She was laughing, and it drained the flare of anxiety he felt immediately. “There’s really almost no difference at all.”

“Oh, okay, good. So like I said, we’re both working from a theoretical framework, here,” he chuckled. “Mostly.”

“Is it _that_ different, between bodies?” Now she sounded a little nervous.

“I think the principles are the same,” he said. 

“...What are the principles?” 

Rex shrugged as much as he could without disturbing her. “I do things that you like, and you do things that I like? We do things that we both like, to and with each other?” 

“Oh.” She seemed surprised at that response, but he couldn’t think of any more fundamental principle when it came to intimacy. “So you have the advantage in that you know more what you like already.” 

Something in him wanted to laugh, just then. They sure did sound like a pair of tactical officers, lying there assessing the reconnaissance data for a coordinated assault. Except this wasn’t that. It was slower, less precise, more organic. Which he didn’t usually prefer, but in this scenario all he wanted was more time with her.

“Maybe, but that just means we get to find out more of what you like. Together,” Rex said.

“You’re very sweet,” she said, nearly in a whisper. 

“Uh, I try,” he replied, face flushing. “I don’t know what you were expecting, though.” She shifted, moved off of him enough to look up into his face. 

“Not for someone to take what I want into consideration.” Her expression was difficult to read; half appreciative, half shadowed by something else. 

“What’s your basis for comparison?” he asked, brow furrowed. “Did something bad happen to you before?”

“ _Cuy ogir'olar,_ ” she said, dismissing the question with a shake of her head. “I’m here with you now, aren’t I?” 

He smiled, stroking her back gently. “Yeah. Lucky me.”

She glanced away, but her smile was back, too. When she looked at him again her golden eyes had found some of the desire from the cruiser under the guise of their coyness, and she bit her lip. Rex felt his whole body respond to it in a brief, brilliant shudder.

“Every time you do that,” he growled softly, running his thumb along her jaw, “I want to kiss you again.” 

She gave the tiniest shrug. “What’s stopping you?” 

Maker alive, he thought. He couldn’t remember being this attracted to anyone but Faro, the kind of thing he’d never expected to feel again. 

“You’re right.” He sat up, turning towards her to dive down and claim her wet, lush mouth. She sank onto her back on the bed, pliant under his tongue and the way he drew her bottom lip into his mouth.

“Can I kiss your neck?” he asked breathily, one hand already reaching up and stroking the spot he had in mind just below her ear. He’d done it before, of course, but something about today made him want to ask— maybe it was the nerves, maybe it was just that anticipation once more.

“Yes,” Sol replied. When his lips brushed against the delicate skin, she shivered. And when his mouth opened and he laved his tongue on that spot, suckling gently, she actually gasped, her fingers digging into his chest a little. Her heart was pounding; he could almost hear it as he worked down under her jaw, then over the center of her throat to the collar of her shirt, leaving a damp trail. It seemed like she’d found a little of that urgency he’d noticed, too; the litany of tiny, breathless whimpers she let out was exhilarating. He trailed a finger along the hem of the shirt, momentarily frustrated that it covered other places on her collar bone that he would’ve done anything to kiss. Instead, he kissed back up to her ear and let his breath linger there, feeling her quiver in response. Her hands were now pawing at his shirt, one rubbing against the skin of his arm to slip up beneath the sleeve.

“Would you like me to do something?” he asked, smirking in spite of himself. 

“Take this off.” It was less an order and more an answer to his question, but he liked it either way. He sat up beside her, facing away for a moment so he could tug the fabric up over his torso and arms to discard it. Before he could lie back down, two warm, tiny hands landed on the small of his back and began to push slowly up towards his shoulders. He sighed, her touch sending waves of sensations through him that beckoned both arousal and relaxation from his touch-starved body. Sol spread her palms over him, running up and down his spine, over his shoulder blades, down his lateral muscles like she’d never touched anything like them before. 

When she kissed the back of his neck ever so gingerly, he wanted to dissolve right there. 

“Is this nice?” she asked, rubbing his shoulders in slow motions. 

“Maker, yes,” he sighed. Again her lips landed against his skin, gently pressing against the muscles of his neck where he bore the weight of his armor, his pauldron, his grief. He sagged under them, and when her hands trailed over onto his chest and she tucked her head up against him, he felt her body pressing into his back. 

He hadn’t realized, in his haste to give her a whole host of new sensations, just how many sensations he’d nearly forgotten. 

“Your back is really lovely.” Her voice was a murmur near his ear, and he felt a strange pang at her words. 

“Oh, um. Thank you,” he stammered, blushing. “The way you touch it is lovely, too.” He felt her smile against his skin. Turning, he nudged her face with his nose until she moved and he could kiss her again. As they shifted he realized she’d risen up on her knees on the bed, and he turned to take her waist in his hands and gently thumb the muscles there, drawing around to the small of her back to press his fingers there as well. 

“Mmm,” she hummed into his mouth, and he felt her lean against him, abandoning control of her body just long enough for him to swing her down into his lap, chuckling. She perched sideways with her arms around his neck, flustered but giggling. One hand slid down to run across his chest like she was mapping the shape of him, her eyes liquid in the filtered sunlight as they slid over what she could see of his body. 

“How’s the front?” he asked cheekily.

“Also lovely.”

“It’s been a while since anybody looked at me like that.” She met his eyes when he spoke, her hand trailing down the length of one arm until she found his hand and drew it towards the bottom hem of her shirt. She pressed it against her skin, pushing the hem up and away. But her breathing had gone shallow, and she was shaking a little.

“Sol, you don’t have to—”

“ _Copaaner gar haa’taylir ni._ ” Then she decided to translate, even though he did recognize those particular words. “I want you to see me,” she said, holding his hand firmly against the soft skin of her belly. Despite her apparent fear, she didn’t break eye contact; her voice was steady, even fierce. He nodded, and began slowly to continue removing her shirt until she raised her arms and let him pluck it off her entirely. 

Her skin, a shade or two darker than his, threw the light back at him, her muscles compact and lithe. Dusky nipples stood out in the sudden chill, and her broad shoulders sloped down into her waist elegantly. He smiled when he realized that there was a tattoo on each of her shoulders— her jaig eyes. His hand landed back against the skin of her stomach where she’d placed it the first time, eyes wandering every supple curve the discarded shirt had revealed. When he met her eyes again, she was holding very still, awaiting whatever came next. 

“ _Gar ori’mesh’la,_ ” he said softly, praising her in her own language. She blinked, and it was like she melted into his hands, putting one arm back around his neck so she could press their foreheads together. 

“When did you learn that?” she asked.

“Shortly after meeting you.” Now she laughed. He wrapped one arm around her back so he could touch her belly, her side, the curve down towards her hip with the other. Then he trailed his fingers over the ink on her shoulders. “I love these. You wear them well.”

“ _Vor’e,_ ” she said softly, and there was something warm in her face like the first time she’d spoken to him about his own jaig eyes what felt like ages ago. Wearing the same honor as her mother must have meant a great deal to her, to decide to bear them forever on her skin. 

“How do you feel?”

“Good.” 

“That’s what I like to hear.” She giggled again, and he recognized the absurd joy and anticipation of finally trying something you’d both hungered for and feared. Without warning, he wrapped his arms around her and plummeted the rest of the way down onto the bed, laughing. 

“We could spend all day here tomorrow, y’know,” he mused, watching the flicker of the light reflected on the walls above. How long had it been since he’d even wanted something like that?

“Oh no we couldn’t,” she said. “Our men would lose their minds.”

“Let them! We’re on R&R, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, but—”

“We’re their COs, aren’t we?”

“Yes.”

“Well, then, why not?” He peered down at her and watched her face as she pondered, and then shrugged. 

“You make a compelling argument,” she ceded at last, her grin reforming. 

“I don’t think like this often, if I can help it, and maybe that’s my problem,” he began, shifting her up along his body so he could look into her eyes. “But we might never get a better chance. Not while this war’s on.” 

Sol gazed up at him, silent for a moment. Her hand stroked his face.

“ _Shereshoy,_ ” she said finally. One corner of Rex’s mouth bent up in a smile.

“Yeah.” He pushed their foreheads together, running his nose along the tip of hers, feeling her opening towards him like a flower towards the sun. A hand trailed down, dancing over her skin as goosebumps formed behind it. She drew in a long breath and hummed as she released it, and it was full of prophecy for what songs he might draw out of her with his touch.

“Sol?”

“ _Elek?_ ” she breathed, eyes growing heavy with want.

“Can I try something?” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i split this whole wholesome af encounter up into two rly cute chapters, so here's the first one! i just thought it would be real nice to represent what it's like to actually communicate about sex... which to be fair i usually do to some extent in most of my fic... but anyway. Rex seemed like the ideal candidate for super fucking cute/hot consent. i've never written a loss of virginity thing before, it's so cute!!


	6. sacred passage

**_Coruscant, Galactic City, Republic Center for Military Operations_ **

In her short life, Sol Tannor had borne much pain. Not simply in that way that all children born into war or poverty in the Outer Rim did, but in the physical way that her nerves carried always from her joints, where strained ligaments clutched her bones together without the assistance of tendons and the tissues that cradled her organs were fragile and prone to damage. Even with the Force as her eternal prop, moving her with all the facilities of grace and strength, the pain never dwindled past a certain point.

It wasn’t something she saw as a burden, though it still felt like a flaw. Pain was part of her, fibrous and responsive as any muscle, steadfast as marrow. It neither surprised her nor moved her.

Pleasure, on the other hand, was astonishing.

In the low light of his little room, Rex summoned so much of it from her body that she felt sure that eventually it would simply run out, like a drained fuel tank. 

At her consent, he let his fingers brush gently against one of her nipples. The response was instant, a tiny gasp and her whole torso tensing. The next stroke was less feathery; as he started to circle the nub of it, her chest heaved up and down and she gripped his neck tightly. Switching to the other one pulled a faint mewl from her throat, and her back arched a little. 

“See, we’re learning,” he said.

“Are yours like this?” she demanded with a gasp.

“No,” he murmured, still teasing her gently. “I mean, it’s nice, but you make it look much more fun than it is for me.” Whatever her reply was meant to be, it became another whimper. “I can stop whenever you want,” he reminded her. “But the sounds you make are incredible.” 

“I…” She shivered again, and he let his touch trail away from the spot that seemed to overwhelm her. “I don’t know, I’m…”

“Take a breath, _cyar’ika._ No rush.” He started stroking her arm instead in long, soothing passes.

“I, um, I can tell you liked it as much as I did,” she said after a moment, smirking. He shut his eyes and groaned as she shifted her body where it was pressed up against his, right over the growing hardness under his fatigue pants.

“Yeah, sorry—”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” 

“Oh, uh, well, yes. I suppose so. I just didn’t want to bother you.”

“You’re silly.” She traced a finger down the side of his face.

“You’re riveting,” he countered, pushing their noses together.

“Will you keep touching me?” The way his eyes shifted when she asked was enough to send a tiny pang of anticipation through her.

“Where?” 

“Everywhere.”

Fingertips trailed all over her, flitting over her nipples again, running paths from her knees to her hips. Even through the jumpsuit’s legs, their light touch on her inner thighs sparkled. 

“Can I take these off?” he asked, tone falling softer. She nodded, already breathing like she knew she was about to dive into an ocean. He moved to pull the garment down over her hips as she laid there on her back, trailing his lips against the inside of her leg as he went. 

Fully nude, she felt that little fear creep around her heart again, the one that had come up before she’d let him remove her shirt. The one that didn’t seem to have any particular focus, no one thing that was frightening— just the deeply ingrained sense of being exposed, and potentially unsafe. His eyes ran down her form as his cheek leaned against her bent knee, utterly rapt. He sighed, and it soothed her.

“Sol _’ika,_ ” he murmured, his hand splayed out over her low belly. It seemed huge, suddenly, the first time she’d ever felt as small as all her brothers teased her for being, even in Stone’s massive arms. He drew it down over the mound between her legs, pressing against it, watching her react as he ran one finger between the lips there.

“Oh!” she gasped, feeling crackling electricity shoot up her spine.

“I was worried you might be too nervous,” Rex began, “but you… you’re _so_ wet.”

“That’s also good, right?” 

He bit his lip, nodding. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s excellent.” She watched as he crouched down a little closer, breathing in her scent before rubbing his fingers against her just a little. Then, one began to stroke gently between her folds, seeking patiently. 

A sudden, much louder moan leapt out of her when he found what he was looking for; a burst of pleasure shooting through her entire body under her skin. A place she’d felt before, but never really explored. 

“Yeah?” he asked, starting to flush with his own excitement. 

“ _Elek,_ ” she breathed in response, nodding rapidly. His eyes flickered between her face and his hand as it made slow circles, amber pools of focus. She found she almost couldn’t stop herself from moving, from writhing beneath his touch and digging her nails into the blanket they laid on as the feeling intensified.

Something big was looming as her pelvic floor tightened, something that felt like the only way to release the pressure that was building inside her. Sol knew, nominally, what an orgasm was, but nothing had prepared her for the way this feeling wrung the pain out of her and replaced it with escalating thrill.

“Rex!” she found herself mewling, her legs shaking powerfully.

“That’s it, _jat’ad,_ ” he murmured, picking up his pace, staring intently up at her. “Let go.” 

It was like his encouragement broke something, and her whole body started to shudder as it took ahold of her only to release her into a flood of rapture. She couldn’t even hear herself groaning and keening, hips jerking under his hand.

By the time he stopped and moved back up to hold her, she’d collapsed back into herself as the ebbing ripples of her first climax slowly faded. His calloused thumb was stroking the buzz of hair by her temple as if to coax her gingerly back to awareness. Eyelashes fluttering, she looked up to see his face hovering over hers, watching. She wanted to speak, but hadn’t found the way to move her mouth yet. So she just stared back until he came into focus.

“That was so beautiful,” he cooed, stroking her cheek. “Was that your first one? Ever?”

She could only nod, enraptured. 

“I could watch you do that all day. Tomorrow, maybe I will.” The twist of his mouth was almost predacious, and his words sent a shock through her— but not an unwelcome one. 

“ _Osi’kyr,_ ” she swore softly, shivering. 

“How do you feel?” 

“Amazing.” 

The next smile was softer. “You want a break before anything else?” 

“Not really,” she said, and her hand was trailing down his torso to linger suggestively at the waist of his shorts. His eyebrows shot up. 

“Oh, well, alright then...”

Now it was her heavy-lidded eyes that were trained on his face as she turned her body towards his. “Show me how to touch you,” she breathed. 

“I… yeah…” 

By the time they’d explored one another’s bodies, their fingers and mouths learning the networks of sensuality mapped beneath their skin, night had fallen. They’d gone back to lying on the bed, facing one another. Sol’s hands were on Rex’s chest, her head on his arm as he held her by the waist up close to his body now as naked as hers. Their legs were just a little tangled up, and her foot stroked over his calf. 

A desire to unburden himself of a certain weight had come over him, now of all times. Maybe it was the vulnerability they were sharing, he thought, or the way she’d trusted him.

“Can I tell you something?” he asked her very quietly.

“Anything.” The way her eyes shimmered, he believed her.

“On Umbara… I…” Now that he tried to speak it, the words choked on their way out. He shut his eyes against the memory of Sergeant Waxer’s face before he faded away, the terrible moment of revelation stinging him like it was still fresh.

“Take your time, _alor’ad,_ ” she said, stroking his chest with her hands. The touch did its work, soothing the rattle in his lungs as sobs threatened to break out.

“On Umbara, I… shot down other clones.” 

He’d expected her shock to come with a withdrawal, but she only moved closer. “How? What happened?”

“On Krell’s orders. He… he told us they were the enemy, dressed in our armor. But it was a platoon from the 212th.” Finally a tear did slip from his eye, and he looked away with shame burning in his throat. A tiny little hand reached up to gently wipe it from his face. “That was after he ordered Fives and Jesse’s execution for disobeying him, even though they were heroes. We never would have secured the capital without them. But none of us could bring ourselves to do _that._ ”

“I’m sorry, Rex.” She sounded like her heart was every bit as broken as his.

“They taught us to follow orders,” he said. “I never thought my orders would be to shoot my own brothers.”

“They never should have been. Those orders were a trick, a cruel one.” There was a fierce, protective edge in her voice. It was soft, subtle, but he knew it. 

“I never should have followed them. I almost let them shoot Jesse and Fives. I let my men down.”

“Rex,” she said, drawing his face up to look into his eyes. “We can’t know everything we must not do before we do it. That was never supposed to be a judgement you had to make. You’re a good soldier, Rex, and an ever better captain. In the end, you and your men accomplished your mission _and_ routed a traitor.”

He looked back at her, heart in splinters, full of grief and yet also flooded with gratitude. For her, for his men. “It’s gonna take me a little while to believe that,” he said.

“That’s alright, _alor’ad._ I’ll be here to remind you.”

“Thank you, _verd’ika._ ”

A pregnant pause fell over the room, and their eyes were locked. 

Nothing had led them here, no lead in the conversation to wind them up to this point. Just his flood of feelings, followed strangely by a moment when it made sense in every way to _make love._ That’s what it felt like was about to happen, for once. But Rex was still nervous. He thought she might’ve been a little nervous also, because the wheels behind her eyes were turning even as she, too, was silent. 

At that moment, the automated sensor in his lamp decided that it was quite late enough, and it shut itself off. He blinked, the ethereal artificial light of an endless city settling in even through the ungenerous window above. She smiled a little, like the light had also surprised her, but it fell right back into a serious, earnest expression still clearly visible in the glow.

“Rex?” she asked finally, her voice a little low and raspy. 

“Yes, Sol?” he replied, swallowing what was left of his hesitation.

“Do you, ah, want…” She trailed off, like she wasn’t sure how to phrase it.

“Yeah,” he almost whispered. “I do.”

“So do I.” 

“I just don’t want to hurt you.” 

“It’s supposed to hurt a little,” she said. “But I want to do it anyway.” 

“You sure?” he asked, curling just a little closer to her.

She nodded. “Yeah.” 

“You just tell me if you want me to pause, or stop, or—” Her finger fell over his mouth, hushing him as she pushed their foreheads together. 

“Rex, I want you to fuck me,” she murmured, and he’d never felt the blood rush to his cock that suddenly in his life. The hand that was on her hip ran down, pulling her leg up over his so he could push himself up and press between her legs, hovering over her. He slid one hand down to her folds, which were mercifully slick still.

Taking a deep breath, he took his cock in his hand and guided it against her until it found her entrance. She froze, one hand on the arm that was supporting him and the other flat against his chest. He glanced up at her, seeking reassurance, and she nodded. 

As he pushed in slowly, her expression was hard to read at first. He hated that he knew just how silent she could be when in pain, that he might miss it now of all moments. When she shut her eyes and her fingers gripped his arm a little harder, he paused and his cock softened slightly as fear seized him.

“Go,” she urged faintly, and in spite of his misgivings he obeyed. Her lip curled once, and she hissed through her teeth. But before he knew it he was sliding home and her eyes blew wide open as she gasped, mouth hanging open and chin stuttering a little. 

“ _That’s_ better,” he said, grinning just a little, feeling himself stiffen right up with the look on her face. He pressed deep inside her, and now that she was starting to gasp with pleasure he could finally feel it himself. When he began to pull out and push back in again, he felt her shake beneath him.

“ _Aah!_ ” she cried, and there might have been pain in it but there was more pleasure than anything. Her chest heaved, eyes closing momentarily as though she could focus on nothing else. “Oh, _oh—!_ ” 

“ _Cyar’ika,_ ” he murmured, pushing his nose up against her ear, starting to pant as he set a slow starting pace. “You feel _incredible._ ”

All she could do was whimper, and he felt her start to clench around him. Letting out a growl, he decided to speed up just to turn the whimpers into moans that were hot and sweet against his ear. Her hands gripped either side of his face suddenly and pulled it up to hers. He claimed her mouth, the kiss devouring her ongoing litany of sounds. She melted under him, most of her upper body going limp as the lower half wrapped tighter and tighter around him. The pressure was fantastic, electrocuting his long-neglected nerves.

Now he was fucking her properly, with no indication that he should be doing anything else. Her back arched, breaking their kiss as her hips rose to meet his— and kept rising, keeping time with him instinctively to meet his thrusts, which was so wildly _hot_ that he groaned and gripped her waist. He knew despite everything they’d done that he was coming up on the precipice, and hoped it wasn’t too soon.

“R-Rex—” It came out in a pitiful mewl, an overwhelmed and breathtaking sound. “Don’t— don’t stop— please— I’m—”

He snarled and rutted with renewed vigor, and her cries started to pitch up in a desperate aria until suddenly they stopped altogether. She clamped down around him like a vice, frozen without even breathing as an orgasm like none of the others struck. When her eyes rolled back, that was the end of him. He felt himself trip and start to fall over the edge, hips stuttering as he fought to keep up his pace. She was shaking now, almost violently, and her cry of pleasure was sudden and loud before it collapsed into little sobs. The contractions of her body coaxed his seed into spilling hot into her, pulled ragged moans out of his throat and ripples of pleasure through his body.

When his hips sagged, arms still propping him up, he hung his head so their faces could rest against each other. At some point her arms had circled his neck, and now her fingers moved as though she were trying to scratch his scalp but had lost her muscle control. They panted in time once more, bathed gently in the myriad colors of a Coruscant night.

Finally he moved, looked at the sweat glistening on her brow and the way her white eyelashes just barely blinked and fluttered. Her gaze was distant, unseeing. He was still inside her, he realized— and then it hit him.

“Shit,” he said on a sharp exhale. “Sol, I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I didn’t _kriffing_ think—”

“Shhh,” she sighed, petting his head. “It’s okay.” 

“It is?” His brow was knit, confused and not yet convinced. 

“Yes, it’s okay, Rex.” Her eyes shut as she slid her hands away from his neck. Guts still a little tense, he slid out and then onto his side against her, splaying a hand over her ribs to feel her breathe. 

“I’m guessing you’re on something for baby prevention purposes?” he asked after a moment, trying to chuckle. But when she shook her head, that drained his humor. 

“I can’t,” she said, voice quiet. 

“You can’t... get pregnant?” 

She shook her head, eyes opening again to swim over and look at him. “No. I don’t… _tal’galar._ I don’t bleed.” 

Whatever he’d expected, that wasn’t it. He moved his hand without thinking down over the low part of her belly as if to comfort the womb there. 

Of course, that was the precise moment that his mind pictured the same belly swollen with child— _his_ child. A feeling he’d never had before struck him, a strange emptiness and guilt that he didn’t really understand in the wake of such an intrusive, inappropriate thought. So he just looked back up at her. 

“I’m sorry, Sol,” was all he could think to say. 

“Don’t be,” she said, smiling at him. A little sadness was hiding in it. “I never expected to have children. I suppose I could try if I really wanted to, with the right medical treatments. Just never thought much about it.” Her fingers rose to touch his face as she spoke, tracing his cheekbone. 

“Well, I reckon until the war’s over there’s no use you fretting about it anyway, right?” he offered. 

“If even then.” She truly didn’t seem concerned. The sadness was distant, like she’d gotten well used to it, didn’t feel lesser for it. He just needed to shake off his own reaction in the wake of his poorly-timed and bizarre little daydream. So he chalked it up to the post-coital flood of tenderness that he knew pretty well, and drew her up closer so he could hold her. A different smile, faint and peaceful, had settled on Sol’s face. 

“Didn’t mean to ruin the moment,” he said quietly.

“You couldn’t have if you’d tried,” she replied, nestling against him. Rex smiled. He doubted that, of course, but he wasn’t fool enough to try and prove it. The afterglow settled in like a blanket over them, and before either of them knew it they were drifting off to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you ever just be poor Rex and have Inappropriately Timed But Ungodly Wholesome Emotions? god they're so cute T-T  
> just in time for some unexpectedly intense action to come up next amirite


	7. in shadow

_**Tatooine, outside Mos Eisley, derelict droid factory, 20BBY** _

“We’ve been here for four hours, _vod’ika,_ ” Swift was murmuring through the commlink inside his helmet as he and Sol laid flat on their backs on a trough of sandy rocks. “Nobody’s going anywhere. You sure we don’t have bad intel?” 

Below them as the rocky part of the desert fell away into dunes, the sun-beaten and bedraggled remains of a massive complex leaned against the incline as though it were out of breath. Reasonably, too, because it had obviously been wracked with laser canon and plasma at some point in its history, and now only a few of the buildings were arguably intact at all. 

“We’ve got two days to find out,” Sol muttered, scanning not just the intact structures but the ruined ones as well. If there were subterranean levels, and on Tatooine there always were, she knew that anyone who wanted to remain hidden might emerge from the rubble closer to the walls before exiting. “Besides, it’s not nightfall yet. Any movement is bound to happen after the suns have set. There’s _osik_ for cover between the factory and anywhere else, unless they come up the rocks.”

“Which they shouldn’t, unless they have at least as much gear as we do,” Grip added from his position some three hundred meters north along the rocky ridge. “These are rough.”

“They’re far enough away from civilization I’m surprised they didn’t just land a ship outside the factory,” Twofer mused from another position, three hundred meters in the opposite direction from Grip. “I guess they’re being extra careful, which is almost more than I usually give Seps credit for.” 

“We’ll see if they have a craft when Stone gets back.” Sol hadn’t been keen on sending just one squad member out to scout a perimeter and look for anything resembling an exit vehicle, but the big clone had insisted with promises not to engage the enemy if he came across them. 

Besides, this mission was reconnaissance. If there were enemies here, they would need General Windu’s orders to make hard contact, and depending on a lot of things they might need backup as well. If whoever was here turned out to be someone other than the Seps, that was more complicated. 

“I hope it’s someone we can blow up,” Twofer growled. “I hate waiting.”

“You’ve been in a real mood lately, _vod,_ ” Swift said. “Something happen between you and that Togruta lady you been seeing?” 

“Since when do I need an excuse to blow something up?”

“It’s not an excuse for _that,_ it’s an excuse for how grumpy you are. The blowing stuff up just fits in with grumpiness real natural, of course.” 

“You can’t blow up your feelings, Twof,” Grip said, stifling his chuckle. The huff from Twofer’s comm meant that his brother was taking liberties at a safe distance. 

“Sarge,” came a deeper voice over the more long-distance channel that they all hoped was narrow enough to carry their unencrypted voices where they needed to go without eavesdropping.

“Go ahead, Stone,” Sol replied, eyes still glued on their target but for her blinking her way into the channel he hailed from. 

“No ships here, just a speeder parked behind the little patch ‘o dunes to the northeast, in the direction of town. Big enough for four, nothing on it. Nobody guarding it, from what I can tell.” 

“Okay. Circle back.”

“Got it.” 

Keeping the report short was wise of him, of course. She blinked back into the squad channel with its much more limited range. 

“Their ship’s at Mos Eisley,” she murmured almost to herself. 

“You reckon?” Swift asked.

“Yes. Unless they stow the speeder on their ship regularly, and use it to get around, but if that were the case they wouldn’t need to park the ship near the city. The speeder’s probably rented. Or stolen.”

“Yeah, there’s no need to add extra travel time this far out, careful or not. It looks like there’s not a lot of back-and-forth out here,” Grip said. “So whatever’s going on, it’s not shipping or smuggling, I don’t think. If it were, there’d be more ships and people moving around close by.”

“What else could somebody want a dead droid factory for, if it weren’t shipping or smuggling?” Twofer asked, audibly frowning. “This place sure as hell isn’t stable enough for storage, not long-term. Short term for moving cargo, sure.”

“Unless there’s underground, like Sarge said,” Swift pointed out. 

“That makes things hard to get into and out of. But, it does make for a good spot to hoard things,” Twofer mused. “Easy to collapse, though, if you’re found out.” 

“Maybe it’s not about cargo,” Sol said. “Out here, if it’s a local op, it’s just as likely to be slaves.”

“Slaves?” The sheer shock in Swift’s voice was almost endearing to her in that moment. 

“ _‘Lek._ There’s still plenty of slavery out here,” the sergeant replied, and she knew her frown was as audible as Twofer’s. “Nobody enforces the laws of the Republic on the Rim.”

“That one of those things you know from before the Jedi found you?” asked Grip.

“Yes.” Sol’s voice was lower, growly, and the word was final like it was its own punctuation mark at the end of her getting into it. But, she decided to continue her thinking aloud. “If it’s slaves, they’re keeping them here a long time before moving them off again, to throw anyone who might be looking for them off their trails.”

“They could also be storing weapons, though I dunno why the Seps would need to do that,” Twofer added. 

“You’re right. If it’s weapons, slaves, or anything illegal, it’ll be local. A makeshift warehouse, maybe, but keeping an extra low profile, so not just the usual spice runners or Trandoshan armaments.”

“Something rare, maybe,” said Swift, his visor once again lined up with the slowly darkening scene below. “Depending on what, could be the Seps are running it. Or they got a middle man, to throw us off their scent.” 

“Unlikely,” Sol said coolly. “This isn’t Sep territory. It’s Hutt territory.”

“Wait, this isn’t Hutt space, is it?” Twofer sounded confused. 

“No.”

“Maker, I thought I was remembering my maps from early ed holos wrong,” the weapons specialist said with a sigh.

“They didn’t teach you about the Hutt cartel?” Sol was the one who was confused, now.

“They did, but it was supposed to be mostly in Hutt space,” Swift said. 

“Oh. Well, mostly it is. But Jabba’s been here, and Gadrulla before him, for a while. It started with gambling, but the Hutts like to seize opportunities to expand wherever they find them. _Shabuir._ ” Her growled insult was personal, but she let it out anyway.

“Wasn’t it Jabba’s son the 501st rescued on Teth?” Grip wondered. “Wouldn’t be very good form of him to aid Separatists, after that.” 

“Hutts don’t have good form,” Sol said dryly. But suddenly she very much wanted to ask Rex about that, since the battle of Teth had happened early on in the war while she was still on Kamino. Leave it to Grip to have heard or read about it somewhere already. 

For a moment, her mind drifted backwards. Two days before, nestled in Rex’s bed. His hands in her hair, his breath on her neck. Almost ten hours of languishing in one another’s company, of talking and touching and laughing. A whole day where she’d nearly forgotten every hurt ever done to her after she’d finally let him in closer than anyone had ever been. A gentle pang ran through her body; she found herself missing him, wondering when they would have R&R together again. 

“Sol, look,” said Twofer suddenly, less than half a second before she saw the figures that were moving around in the far east corner of the derelict. She heard the sound of Swift tightening his grip on his big Trandoshan rifle. He wasn’t supposed to shoot, but it was a precaution the sniper always preferred to take in case he had to.

The light was almost gone, and there was no way to make out their faces at this distance even with the electrobinoculars on. Two people seemed to be carrying boxes from one building to another— from a more intact building to one that barely had three walls and half a ceiling left standing. 

“It's underground,” she said softly. 

“Nice to see it’s not slaves,” Grip said dryly.

“Not yet, no.” Sol knew that, if a Hutt was involved, then at some point slaves would be, too. The same went for the Pikes, and the Black Sun. It was almost as guaranteed with the crime lords of the clawed and fanged edges of the galaxy as it was with Zygerrians— though, she mused rather smugly, the latter might not be so active in that trade since the Republic had descended upon Kadavo. 

“There’s something approaching, north-northeast,” said Grip suddenly. “Looks like a small ship.”

“Stone,” Sol hissed as she blinked back over to the comm’s wider channel. 

“I see it. Been circling the other direction. You want me to go back to it?” He was always paying attention to these things, thank the Maker. 

“No, hold your position until we know how many and where they’re going. And switch to clicks only.”

“ _Suvar,_ ” Stone acknowledged, and the channel went quiet. Having infiltrated a lot of unfriendly territory and spent time behind enemy lines on a dearth of missions, Cronos Squad had developed a code of tongue-clicks for when they were using a comm channel that might not prove secure. Sometimes they even used it on their squad channel, narrow as its range was, just in case. 

“You want me to go ‘round to him if he calls, Sarge?” Twofer asked her. “I’m the closest.”

“ _Elek,_ ” she confirmed. 

Frankly, it shocked all of them to watch the ship slide up to the north wall of the old factory like it belonged there. Apparently, whoever these newcomers were, they weren’t as careful as the others here. That meant they didn’t spend much time here, Sol thought, and were likely making a short stop to inspect progress or retrieve or deposit something. 

“Got three heading inside,” Grip reported. Sol could see them, but the medic was closer. “One’s in armor. The other looks like a Falleen, and the last one— ah, shit. Hard to tell, but I thought he had horns on his head.”

“Togruta?” Sol asked, brow furrowed in disbelief.

“No, more like a Zabrak.” 

“Hm.” They weren’t a species she knew much about, though at the Rimsoo on Drongar she’d heard one of the surgeons had been Zabrak. He, like many others, was lost to the war effort. The only others she’d met were bounty hunters, and that felt ages ago.

“Anyway, they walked in like they owned the place.” 

“Did the armored one’s helmet look an awful lot like a clone’s to you, _vod?_ ” Swift asked in a low, slightly uncomfortable tone. 

“It wasn’t the right shape,” Grip replied. “That wasn’t plastoid armor, either. They’re going down the same way the goods were, through that broken building.” Grip’s reports were steady, and nothing about them surprised Sol as she watched and remembered how criminals tended to conduct their activities. “Seems the others are taking orders from them.”

“Yeah. They’re the leaders, or they represent the leaders,” she told them.

“We gonna wait for them to head out to get a better look?” Twofer asked.

“You know if they got comms or jammers, Grip?” she asked.

“Maybe comms, I doubt jammers on that little boat.”

“Let’s wait, then, for now.”

The commandos fell silent, watching the ruins below. For about an hour, crates of various sizes were moved below ground through where the visitors had descended. Only one or two crates were moved on board the ship, and then activity seemed to still.

Two more hours into the Tatooine night, nothing and no one had emerged. 

“I guess they’re camping for this cycle,” Twofer muttered. “Maybe we should sleep in watches.” 

“That’s fine,” Sol replied. She hadn’t looked anywhere but down at the starlit factory remains for quite some time, her mind shifting between blankness and latent, quiet anger that pushed old memories away. “Get some rest, _vode._ You can change every two hours. I’ll call Stone back to the south position.”

“What about you?” Swift asked her once she’d sent a few clicks out over the other channel and heard the return clicks from Stone.

“I’m not gonna sleep while we’re on this rock.”

“Sol _’ika,_ you know you’re not a clone, right?” 

“It’s not like that,” she replied, voice quiet. “I _can’t_ sleep here.”

“Fine,” he conceded, resigned. “But if you manage to get sleepy, let us know and we’ll let you take a nap, or something.”

“ _Vor’e, vod._ ” Her voice got softer for the moments it took her to say those words. “But I’m thinking of going down, actually.”

“What?” Swift sputtered.

“Sarge!” came Twofer’s startled, half-sleepy voice. Somewhere behind it was Grip’s sound of protest.

“ _Udesii!_ ” Sol commanded. “Listen. We’re here for recce, right?” 

“Yeah, but—”

“Swift.” The way she said his name was a firm, familial warning. The sniper settled reluctantly. “Now. I don’t wanna be here any longer than we have to be. All we really need to know is if whoever’s down there is affiliated with the Seps or not, _serim?_ So, if you’ll cover me, I can go down and put my ear to the wall and see if I can learn anything quicker than just laying here. If there’s movement, or if you see something, I’ll pull out. Lots of warning. That sound reasonable to everyone?” 

“Stone won’t like it,” Twofer noted dryly. “But he’s not back at south position yet, so he can’t hear us to tell you that.”

“Stone would listen to me before he offered his final judgement,” said Sol, her voice a little steely. “Regardless, this is my mission. I’d rather you all were at my six, watching from above. If I were alone, I wouldn’t bother.” 

“You going underground, too?” Grip asked.

“Can’t learn much from a desert breeze.” 

“I don’t like it, Sol,” Swift said, and for the first time almost since Kamino, his voice was stern with disapproval. “It’s tight down there. You should at least take a buddy.”

“Be twice as likely to get caught if we make twice the noise,” she replied. “I’m not gonna pick a fight, _vod._ I’m gonna listen, and as soon as I know something, I’ll be back. This isn’t a major operation. Not yet, anyway. It doesn’t have heavy fortifications or guard. We should take advantage of that.” 

“Alright.” Swift’s voice wasn’t passive or resigned; the open criticism was still abundantly clear. “But will you at least put a time limit on it? An hour, at most?”

Sol took in a deep breath, wondering if that would be enough time. It was unlikely that the lower levels were labyrinthine, not with an abandoned droid factory.

“ _Jat._ One hour.”

“And will you pull out early if it looks bad? SOS if you need?” 

She nodded. She didn’t need to see his face under his helmet to know what it looked like as he sighed and turned to look back out over the rocks for a moment. 

“Right. Go, then. We’ll cover you from here.”

Leaving her protective brother to sulk, Sol began her descent down the craggy rock face. It had taken all she had not to bristle wildly at Swift when he took that tone with her— the edge of her patience was much closer than usual, in this particular desert. But he was doing it because he cared, and that had kept her from snapping. Tone or not, Swift would ultimately follow her orders, even if he did continue to give her shit about it.

The outside of the complex was easy enough to breach from any side; apparently the Republic had already lit this place up once, long ago in the early days of the war. The reports of activity at the old droid factory had concerned some senators and some of the Jedi, so all they wanted from her squad was to find out if they should be squirming or not. 

She hadn’t bothered trying to explain to them that the probability of it being crime-related was so high that she wouldn't have bothered looking. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway; there was nothing wrong with taking precautions. And she did not choose the missions she was asked to do, nor was she resistant enough to refuse this one when Windu had briefed them.

And, as she herself had said, a Hutt was unlikely to turn down any opportunity, even if it came from the CIS.

Inside, there was plenty of cover in the form of debris. Her HUD indicated no life forms save one standing close to the entrance to the subterranean levels they’d already seen in use. Dodging through the mess and staying low, Sol did her best to sniff out an alternate opening.

It didn’t take her long to find one. Slipping down under a slab of permacrete and rubble, she found stairs that turned to show her a large door that was rusted half-open. Creeping up to it, Sol kept herself flush with the wall and peered through her HUD around the edge to see what she could see.

The first level was a huge room, old parts of assembly lines still intact. Everywhere she looked, the dusty surface of what remained of the place’s old purpose was piled on with crates and boxes that were conspicuously clean by comparison. They crowded in heaps everywhere, on every horizontal surface with only a few meager pathways carved through them so their handlers could get around. 

It was the nightvision on her visor that showed her this— no light was on inside, nor did anything shift as though alive as she stared. This might be the only decent entry point, she thought, other than the one she was trying to avoid. 

Pushing the door gently to see if it would squeal with rust, Sol managed to get it open enough to slip inside into the utter darkness. She held her DC-17 across her chest as she stepped with practiced silence between the stacks of crates. 

She eyed the letters printed on the boxes as she went. Some were Arubesh, some Huttese, one was a language she remembered seeing as a child but never actually learning. The words she could discern were all innocuous; grain flour, or fiber cabling, or some other import that was needed on a desert planet. Whatever was inside them, it was being hidden in a way that was so traditional, it almost made her laugh. But these were the cornerstones of clandestine business, the tried and surprisingly still true-enough methods of any smuggler who’d been around the Rim once or twice.

The thing that stopped her in her tracks was a crate that was marked in a script she knew well but had not seen in years. One crate, so large they’d left it on its little repulsorlift platform for wherever they decided to move it again, was labeled in Mando’a.

It was just some company logo, a family name she didn’t even recognize. The rest of the print was Arubesh, and it made familiar boasts for any business in the galaxy. Perhaps it shouldn’t have mattered— if these crates were stolen or simply borrowed from their previous shipments, then even one from the Mandalore sector wasn’t necessarily indicative of anything. The urge to break into it anyway and find out what it housed came over her powerfully, though, and she remembered Mereel Skirata’s words.

But it didn’t matter, she thought. It wasn’t worth getting caught. So, she continued to weave her way through the haphazard paths between storage in search of another stairwell.

It was the same sort of door, on the opposite side of the vast room. This one was stuck open fully, so she passed through it less visibly than a shadow. Below, another door was mostly open. But this time, there was a light beyond, glowing faintly from closer to the center of the room. More crates, as well as other stranger shapes, were stacked around; an especially large crate was nearby, and she caught yet more Mando’a script in the weak, sallow lamplight emanating around it.

It had to be Mandalorian weapons, she thought. Often enough her father had chased down smugglers who were accused of changing buyers at the last minute when someone else was willing to pay more. And someone almost always was willing, because they were among the best and most coveted arms in the galaxy. 

She had the passing thought that it might just make his day if she could pilfer one for Twofer, but that seemed unlikely. Instead, she peered around the door just a little to see what was going on closer to the source of the light. A few figures moved, their shadows interrupting the glow to ooze in strange shapes across the walls and ceiling. Her HUD identified six life forms— droids would have to move, use a commlink, or fire a weapon to register on her scanners.

Sol waited to see if any sound would make its way to her, but none did at that distance. Turning to clear all directions of the path that she was entering, she slipped through the doorway and down between the crates again at an unhurried pace. Glancing around constantly for movement approaching from anywhere that wasn’t dead ahead, she pricked her ears to the internal sonic relay speakers inside her helmet.

“...have to keep that particular operation on the moon,” a distant voice was saying, or that’s what she thought she heard. It was gruff, nasal— a Falleen if she’d ever heard one, and she’d heard plenty.

“My workers… protect the site… expect us to guard it when Sundari is such a target?” This voice was higher, sharp. A woman’s, coming through a helmet vocoder. 

The name of the capital city of Mandalore was like a spike through Sol’s mind, pinning the script on the boxes, Mereel’s information, and the words of the dead Black Sun agent on Drongar together neatly and horribly. She made her way as close as she could to hear their words more clearly. 

“There are new guardians for Sundari, Miss Kryze. I assure you, your services will be more critical on Concordia.” The third voice was different in a way that caught Sol’s curiosity, a smooth tenor that lilted with a high Coruscanti accent and oozed calm authority. But the name _Kryze_ was like a gong in her ears, one shocking yet familiar thing after another.

“It sounds like you’re trying to keep the Death Watch pinned up on Concordia when our rightful place is on Mandalore,” said the woman’s voice from under her helmet. “Pre Viszla wouldn’t—”

“Pre Viszla is dead,” came the smooth voice, now with just a hint of raw edge in it. “Yet you continue to invoke his name. Perhaps you should consider making your protests for your own sake, and see what happens.” 

“Well, either way, we’ll be moving this stuff in waves like you ordered, my lord,” came the Falleen voice again, as though trying to hurry past the tension in the room. “You sure you don’t wanna leave one of us here to guard the spot?”

“This location is not the responsibility of the Black Sun nor the Pikes, Grega, have we not gone over this?” 

“Sorry, my lord. I just don’t trust these Hutt sleemos.”

“Watch it!” came a hissing voice. “Jabba wouldn’t take kindly to your words, scaly.”

There it was. All of Mereel’s information laid bare before her. This was a Shadow Collective operation, whoever they were. All three crime syndicates and the Death Watch, neatly cloistered in one room. And no indication at all that they were connected to the Separatists, at least not yet. No word of any Sith, either, but Sol remembered General Tammeth’s words about the Jedi Council wanting to know about that particular title even in whispers.

That meant that this wasn’t a Separatist project, either. Her time was running out, but she strained to hear a few more words, in case any of them would drop a few more grains of intel. Then, she would vanish like a shadow back to her _vode_ and they could get off this cursed rock, she told herself.

“All of you, settle down,” sighed the smooth voice of the one who was clearly the leader, suddenly more annoyed than angry. “Such squabbles between factions who all have the same goal, and common enemies. Speaking of enemies, have any of you ever fought against a Jedi?” 

There was half a moment of stunned silence, and Sol held her breath.

“A Jedi?” rasped the Falleen, clearly stumped. “Not me.” 

“No,” hissed the other.

“Surely _you_ have, Mandalorian,” the leader said.

“Of course I have,” the woman growled, and her voice was defensive. “Why do you ask?” 

“Because I believe there is one listening to us right now.”

Freezing with her blaster still in-hand, Sol had less than a breath to be shocked and confused before all of them seemed to be scrambling away from the source of the light, dodging and peering down the paths between the crates looking for her. For the first time in years, she felt her heartbeat double with a surge of panic. 

_How—?_

As soon as a snarling Trandoshan face came into view pointed directly at her around the nearest corner, though, the panic fell flat as her training and her instincts took over. Almost before he could shout, she sent a plasma bolt flying between his eyes and he collapsed onto the floor. 

“Over there!” 

Turning down towards a side path and making her way around the outskirts of the room, Sol headed towards the wall where she knew she would be taken closer to the main entrance to the underground. Behind her she felt it, that tug that warned her of incoming fire, and she ducked to avoid the first shot. Mid-turn as she went to return fire, another shot caught her side and sputtered against her shielded armor. But she offset the impact with a quick correction to her footwork and sent her blast back at the Falleen, who dodged it. 

There was another attacker ahead, she knew; they were trying to converge on her. Dropping suddenly to the floor to roll backwards like a ball of crumpled-up plasteel, she managed to slam right into the newcomer’s shins and send them sprawling out onto the floor over top of her; they obligingly absorbed another shot from the Falleen with a yelp.

“You idiot!” they snarled with dismay, but the reptilian bounded past them on Sol’s heels as she took a knee, fired a shot at another incoming attacker down another path, and sprang to her feet almost in one smooth motion. 

“Hold still!” barked the Falleen as he sent another volley her way, but Sol carried on up and dodged every one. Nanoseconds after she drew her lightsaber staff from her back, she sent a blast from the other attacker back at them from where they lay on the ground still trying to take her out.

Too quick for her to turn and block it, another blast caught her from behind, and her shield threw sparks as it clung to the last of its charge. 

“ _Osik!_ ” she swore under her breath. Spinning, she sent shots from this new attacker and the Falleen, who was too close now, back at them. Springing up onto a nearby crate, Sol continued to climb as she deflected more blasts.

It was a metal slug that pinged into her shoulder pauldron, though, and it barely registered to her senses. Another was on its heels, driving into the back of her durasteel knee in the crevice of her armor. The Mando woman, of course, she thought ruefully. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she found herself grateful once again for her ill-fated first spar with Rex and the surprise advantages of cybernetic knees.

“ _Vod!_ ” she barked into the commlink of her helmet as she sent more blaster bolts flying, finally dropping the Falleen as he tried to haul himself up the crates after her. “Extraction, please!” 

“We’re coming, _vod’ika!_ ” came Swift’s voice, just as a third slug buried itself in her chest plate nearly dead in the center of the red teardrop-shape that was painted on it. She ducked and turned to fire only to watch the flash of _beskar_ armor as her opponent soared away from her on the propulsion of her jet pack. Snarling, Sol leapt down the other side of the crates away from her converging attackers, tucking the DC-17 away again as she went. 

At least four left; the Mando, another thug, the guard upstairs, and the leader. Hopefully her squad would neutralize any other threats before they found her. Bounding up the stairs towards the first sub-level, she deflected two more plasma bolts and managed to dodge another bullet before she heard the squealing roar of a Gammorean. 

The sound struck a memory that flashed before her eyes— a Twi-lek girl, howling as whips lashed her back, straining against her bonded wrists and ankles. The dance of her chains on the floor as the guards continued to strike her, the boiling fury she felt as the low, foul laugh of a Hutt rose in volume. 

The look Sol had given her father, and she knew he’d felt it even under her helmet. _Why won’t you stop this? Why won’t you help her?_

She’d been too young at the time to know what to do, paralyzed there as she watched the cruel ritual so commonplace in such an elaborate den of thieves as Jabba’s palace. But this time, the Gammorean would not be so lucky. 

The corner was tight as she swung around it, already fully prepared for the attack; Gammoreans were huge and tough but not especially clever, and they approached most fights with a massive axe held high above their heads, ready to swing it down and cleave their opponent in two. One end of Sol’s orange blade drove up hard into his belly, puncturing his guts and drawing a high scream from his tusked mouth. He staggered backwards under his own weight and that of the axe, and as he toppled onto his back she leapt over his body and spun the other end of the staff across his outstretched arms to sever them neatly from his body. But another blast came from behind her just as she reached the opening to the surface, sizzling through her shoulder and stinging her sharply as it drained the last of the life from her shield. 

Gasping, she hauled herself aboveground and staggered onto the sand before shuffling her feet almost like a dancer to regain her balance and sprint forward. In the light of three moons, she saw that one dilapidated wall of the factory complex was close— and the ship on the other side of it was prepped for takeoff with its hatch open. She could hear the sounds of combat behind her, and knew that the strength of guards here was far greater than any of them had anticipated. 

Turning to try and spot her squad in the melee, what she saw stopped her in her tracks. 

The Zabrak that Grip had seen was standing before her, his striking red and black-tattooed face stern but strangely nonplussed. In his hand was a lightsaber, its hum pulsating through the desert air— and it was red, a color she’d never seen but had always heard was that of a Sith.

“Strange,” he mused, and she recognized the silky voice from below, “you are the first Jedi to wear the armor of your soldiers.” 

“I’m not a Jedi,” she spat, and the fresh surge of anger from the Gammorean was flowing through her, wrapped around the perpetual ache of her bones. The impacts from the shots to her shield had left bruises she could feel blooming under her skin, and her shoulder continued to burn from the half-powered plasma bolt. But she held her stance, brandishing her staff, and felt the strange tunnel-vision of the Force starting to mask her sight. The Zabrak regarded her for just a moment, as though he were curious.

“No,” he said. “I think you must not be.”

He leapt into action at almost the same moment that Sol did, and the sheer brute force of the impact when their two blades met for the first time was like a shockwave. Then, everything was sound and fury as their fight began.

Strangely, his attack style became familiar after several strikes; it was unpredictable and furious, so much like the way that Mace Windu had once taught her to fight. But it was wilder, less controlled, and she’d never really learned how to meet it with a blade before she was shipped off to Kamino. It took every breath she could gasp out to keep up with him, and she knew that she would falter sooner than later as the Force seemed unwilling to latch onto anger while her intellect was so wrapped up in trying to understand who or what this stranger was. The memory did not linger in the wake of her distraction, and so the power it granted drained.

“SOL!” came a shout over her commlink, the voice of Grip full of adrenaline and purpose— and fear.

“Get out of here, _vod!_ ” she barked back in a spare instant as she ducked under a pile of debris only to hear the sizzle of a red saber carving into it just behind her. 

“We’re not leaving you!” came the fully expected reply. 

“Bring the _Titan!_ ” she ordered. This time, the beat it took for him to respond meant that he understood. It was past time for them to leave; she’d gone from meeting the Zabrak’s blows to avoiding them.

“Stone, go!” Grip shouted; she could see none of what they were doing, could only hear the sounds of blaster fire and once or twice the loud bang of a mortar as Twofer lobbed them strategically around the ruins. They would start to circle her, she knew, but she had no idea how they could help her against this Zabrak man without somehow catching him by surprise. 

When she heard the sound of a jetpack behind her, she knew it was too late to strategize. An instant later, she was careening off the permacrete mess she’d been standing on top of as a bullet struck her helmet and her HUD shut itself down completely. Blinded save for the strip of light her visor just barely afforded, she tumbled down the rubble and tried to yank her helmet off as she found purchase in a crouch below. 

As soon as she could see, the sight that greeted her was a metal boot that slammed into her shoulder and knocked her back. The flail of her saber staff was batted away and out of her hand by a red blade, which then settled incredibly close to the skin under her jaw. Goosebumps crackled up under its energy, and she went utterly still as she watched the tattooed face of her opponent appear above her. 

“You are coming with me. The rest of my men can deal with your little friends,” he said, calm but for a growl that lurked beneath his voice. 

“You’ll have to kill me, _shabuir,_ ” she replied— and immediately reached for her sidearm, the DC-15 at her hip. 

Before she could grab it, she felt something invisible and huge pound her back into the dusty ground. It pinned her there like a boulder on her chest, and wrapped something around her throat. Trying to gasp only seemed to make it lean harder against her windpipe, and the Zabrak crouched to lean closer to her with his blade still threatening her very, very closely.

“Perhaps we can arrange for that later,” he said with a frown. 

“ _SOL!_ ” The scream of her brothers through their helmet vocoders was like a blade through her heart, shot through with horror. 

“Lord Maul, we should go _now!_ ” barked the Mando woman’s voice, much nearer than Sol had expected. But her vision was starting to darken from the lack of oxygen, and she wasn’t sure if it was real or not but she thought she heard the distant _thrum_ of ion engines. 

The _Titan._ Her boys would escape. She had to believe that. 

Rolling his eyes as though simply irritated with the whole affair, the Zabrak turned off his red blade. The restriction on her neck eased just a little, enough she could gasp in two precious lungfuls of air. 

Then, without warning, he struck her in the face with the blunt hilt of his blade, and all was darkness. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a Long One, but hoo man, there is PLOT AFOOT!


	8. similitude

_**Mandalore, Sundari, Royal Palace** _

When she came to, Sol found herself lying on her back with a profoundly stiff neck and pain clustered all over her body. She was stripped completely of not just her armor, but her regulation blacks as well; down to nothing but black compression shorts and tank top, she felt the cold of the permacrete floor she was splayed out on, a stark contrast to the burn of her insides. 

It was a small room— a cell, she figured. But the entire front wall was transparisteel, frosted in a simple pattern on either side of the door of the same material, while the other walls were solid. The stark lights that shone down on her made it difficult to see into the darker hallway, and the swelling of her left temple and eye didn’t help. It was so quiet that she wondered for a moment if she’d lost her hearing. 

The sound of her own sharp inhale when she tried to move alleviated that particular worry. At least one rib was out of place, as per usual. Bruises were on her arms when she glanced down at them, massive purple-black welts under her dark skin. More were on her legs. Her face throbbed with them. The shoulder that had been struck by a blaster bolt was especially painful, and unwilling to respond to her mind’s demands that it move. 

Before she could make much more of an internal inventory, she heard something. Footsteps, coming down a distant part of the hall; they rang metallic through the air, the disciplined and mechanical gait of a droid. They stopped just outside, beyond what she could see without moving. 

“Leave us,” said a voice, soft and familiar. 

“Yessir.” This time it was the sound of armor-shod feet she heard, getting farther away. The clear door slid open, and a Zabrak stepped inside. 

The one from Tatooine, she half-realized. She could remember what had happened until he knocked her out, but it didn’t register that those were her most recent memories until she saw his face, a blaze of red and black with yellow, ever-furious eyes under a crown of horns. Even now, with his expression quite neutral, she could feel the hate that seemed to live inside him. 

It was horribly, vitally familiar, that emotion.

“Ah, I see you are awake,” he said in a cool voice. “Allow me to attend to your wounds.”

Sol narrowed her eyes, seeing that he did indeed have a med kit with him. She wanted to snarl, to tell him never to touch her, but everything hurt and at that moment she knew that information about where she was and what in the Maker’s name was going on was more important. 

So, she made no protest as he knelt beside her and began to open the kit, drawing out what he needed. Looking at the mark on her wounded shoulder, he clucked and shook his head a little. 

“We’ll have to see to that one first,” he said almost to himself as he reached over to pull the sleeve of her tank top back just enough to lay a bacta patch over the plasma burn that had narrowly missed her jaig eye tattoo. The familiar sting of it shot through her from the wound out to the tips of her fingers and toes, but she didn’t move. He took two more patches and laid them at the center of the two most impressive bruises, one on her leg at the mid-thigh and another on her torso where the gap between her shirt and shorts revealed a blotch that was quite possibly the worst of the bunch. Each time it stung like hell, and then slowly the pain began to ebb. 

“Forgive me for this one,” he said as he cut a patch down to a more suitable size and laid it over the swollen side of her face, down the length of her cheekbone and over her temple. She didn’t even wince, only stared at him. “I had to make a rather hasty decision, if you’ll recall, but it was not my desire to add to your wounds.” 

“Hm,” she replied, a brief sound that was laden with skepticism. 

“I understand your reticence to believe me, I assure you,” he said as he measured out a self-injecting syringe. “This is a coagulant, by the way, as you appear to bruise far too easily. It should speed the time it takes them to recede.” 

He put the vial to her shoulder and pressed the button, and she felt the familiar strange sensation of an injection finding its way into her tissues. It was strange, Sol thought, that he noticed the intensity of her bruising. It was also interesting that he was holding her prisoner here, but caring for her personally. Still, her eyes watched him like puddles of molten gold under her white lashes and eyelids heavy with exhaustion. 

“Where am I?” she asked at length, watching him cut another patch to put smaller pieces on her other bruises. 

“You are in the Royal Palace of Sundari,” he replied evenly, as though there were nothing at all alarming about that. 

“ _Manda’yaim,_ ” she murmured, looking around the cell again as though some new clue she’d missed before would be hiding in it. But her heart was thudding at a weird rhythm, knowing she was on Mandalore again for the first time since she was too young to remember. 

“Yes, I hoped you might be at least passingly familiar with your homeworld,” the Zabrak said rather dryly. 

Sol resisted the urge to snap at him, to say that this was not and had never been her home. The bacta was working quickly, and she was beginning to feel more and more hale by the moment. But there was still a rib leaning against her lung. 

“Pardon my rudeness,” the Zabrak continued. “I forgot to introduce myself. I am Maul.” 

For a moment, she only eyed him. The name was coming back to her from the memory of the droid factory, one she’d heard only moments before she was rendered unconscious. “You are not of the _Mando’ade,_ ” she said. 

“I am afraid not, no,” Maul replied, crossing his hands in his lap and looking down at her. “But I am the ruler of your people, now, so I suppose there’s that.”

She blinked. Had he just said he was the _ruler_ of Mandalore? 

“I am _dar’manda,_ ” she said, voice low. “These are not my people.”

“I remain the ruler here, regardless.” 

“And how do the _Mando’ade_ feel about that?”

“They are perhaps more compliant than you might expect.” 

Sol almost snorted. “You haven’t been here very long, then. The Death Watch will come for you just as they’ve come for every other ruler of Mandalore.” 

“The Death Watch is under my command as well,” Maul said with a slight bristle. “So, I think not.”

“Think whatever you like.” 

“You have not yet told me your name.” He was irritated, clearly, but trying to change the subject in an attempt to salvage his little interrogation. That must be what it was, she thought, because there was no other reason for him to be here speaking to her. His methods were quite divergent from what she expected from either a crime lord or someone who proposed to lead Mandalore, especially with the Death Watch supposedly at his side. Reaching up to her torso where she could feel the rib that was still displaced, she palmed it gingerly. 

“Did none of the _Kyr’tsad_ tell you who I am?” she asked as she reached around her side and brought her other hand up to assist. With less than a wince, she pushed the errant bone back into its place. Once it was there, she at last took a deep breath. 

“No,” Maul replied, watching her reset the rib as she’d done a thousand times before. He seemed almost impressed. “They did mention your clan, but not you.” 

Hauling herself upright with her palms pressed into the cold floor, she pushed a few strands of her hair that had come out of its long braid away from her face. 

“I am Sol Tannor. I am Sergeant of Cronos Squad, commando soldiers serving the Grand Army of the Republic.” The look she gave him was pointed, driving home that she was still a warrior, Mando or not.

“Yes, I did note the armor. Tell me, where did you find that staff you fought with?” It sounded almost like he thought she’d just happened upon it somewhere, like he was chiding a child for picking up something she didn’t know how to use. 

“It was given to me,” she said, suspicion stilling her from saying more.

“By a Jedi?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why?” 

“Because I was trained at the Temple before I joined the army.” 

“Yet you are not a Jedi now.” It was a statement, but the question in it was clear enough.

“No,” she frowned.

“And why is that?” 

“Because there was no place for me among them.” 

“Yet you do use the Force, do you not?” 

That caught her off guard. “Infrequently,” she said, uneasy. 

“Now, Lady Sol, you must not think to lie to me. I, too, use the Force, and I know that you are using it even now.” The way he looked at her, he seemed almost delighted. But her frown only deepened, brow furrowing. 

“What are you talking about?”

“I could almost believe that you don’t know,” Maul said, “even after spending time among the Jedi. They would find a use for you, put you to their own purposes, as soon as they met you. Rather than teach you the true depths of that power. Because they felt it too, did they not?” 

His words rang in her ears, put her on her back heel. “I am not powerful enough to be one of them,” she growled softly. “Nor do I wish to be.” 

“That, I do not believe. But, perhaps I am getting ahead of myself. You use the Force to help yourself move, do you not? It wraps around you, props you up. Even now, I can feel it.” 

Sol's face darkened. “That began a long time ago, and I didn’t know it until I had been with the Jedi for some time.” She remembered the day she’d told Mace Windu in the serene little meditation room that she had finally realized what it was that helped her fight, why she could continue through the pain that she always felt. Pain that radiated from her bones even now.

“Did they show you the secret?” Maul asked, eyes keen as he looked at her. “Or did you discover it for yourself?” 

“What secret?” she hissed, glaring back. 

“That it is the pain inside you that calls out to the Force.” 

Freezing, Sol felt her face slip from defensive anger into shock that hit her deeper than anything ever had. All her life, she had hidden it, kept quiet about it. Until her master had given her the time and space to speak of it, and her squad had nearly bullied her into being honest with them, too. Even Rex didn’t know yet, how much her joints always protested her every movement, _why_ her knee had slipped so completely out of place during their spar. 

For this man, this stranger who threatened her and her men and fought with a Sith blade and presumed to rule the warriors of Mandalore, to see it almost immediately… she could conjure no response.

Maul, on the other hand, was almost smirking. “For you do feel pain, don’t you, Sol Tannor?” he asked, voice velvet and knowing. “I can feel it flowing through you even at this very moment.” 

She found herself leaning slightly away from him, though he had not made a single move to get nearer. It was one thing to feel so exposed by his sight, the one secret she’d kept from damn nearly everyone laid bare before him by the Force. But the thing that was worse was that she felt a tidal wave of _relief—_ the endless task of hiding herself falling like dead weight from her shoulders. 

He knew, he _saw._

“Yes,” she said, barely a whisper.

“I understand,” he said soberly, nodding. 

“No, you don’t,” she snapped, the shame and anger and howling loneliness of her suffering for so many years rising up in defense. “Nobody does.” 

“Oh, my lady.” Maul was looking at her with something that must have been sadness, now, since it was too sincere to be pity. Reaching up to the sash that tied his tunic together, he pulled it loose and opened the front. 

His chest and torso were tightly muscled, and the black tattoos continued from his face and hands across it. But the raw and brilliant pattern of his skin came to a sudden halt at his midriff, where the dull sheen of durasteel wrapped around it and continued down until it disappeared beneath his trousers. When he shifted slightly to hold his chest a little higher, she saw his skin tug ever so slightly at the metal, then saw the metal follow his movements. She could almost hear the sound of his hips hinging, the slight metallic creak of durasteel joints she knew well.

Suddenly, the sound of what she had taken for a droid’s steps in the hallway made sense. Her eyes flew open, fixated at first on the place where his flesh met metal and then up at his face. He held her gaze for a long moment before he dropped the tunic and let its fabric drape over him once more. 

“So you see, I know something about being in pain,” he said softly. 

“It hurts still?” she asked, captivated and horrified.

“Do yours not hurt, still?” Maul countered, glancing down at her knees. She found herself looking at the durasteel plates there, too. Rex had not even mentioned them, when he saw her naked in the Coruscant light. Like it made no difference to him if they were flesh or not, so long as they were hers. But they did still hurt, she realized; the ache of her old knees was replaced with a duller one, like the ends of her nerves were still smarting as they reached through the neuro-optic fibers towards their brothers that were still intact on either side of the cybernetic joints. 

“ _‘Lek,_ ” she muttered, giving a faint nod. 

Maul nodded as well. “And these are but the stings of ants compared to the deeper wounds, are they not?” 

Looking past the world around her for a moment, Sol felt the truth of his words land home in a way that threatened to bring tears to her eyes. This time, the thing that mixed with the strange and unwelcome sense of relief wasn’t anger or shame. It was just pain, her heart sagging in its cage as the reality of her brief life settled in with more pristine and cruel clarity than it ever had. The ironic crown jewel of it all was that now she was here, on Mandalore of all places, a captive of the Death Watch and of this Zabrak who seemed to understand her better than any Jedi ever had.

She didn’t need to answer. 

“You may see more clearly now why I am so interested in knowing you better, Lady Sol,” Maul said at last, tucking his tunic back across himself and tying it closed once more. “I have not met someone so like, and yet unlike myself, before.”

“Nothing about me is more important than the fact that I am sworn to my duty to the Grand Army, and I will return to that duty with or without your blessing,” she replied, but there was no bite in her voice, disarmed as she was by whatever had just happened. She wasn’t even meeting his gaze.

“We may have to agree to disagree on that point,” he replied. “Your family name carries quite a bit of history, it would seem, that resounds within these very halls.”

“Does it?” Now the scowl was back, and she cut her eyes sharply back at him. 

“Oh yes. Members of the Death Watch assisting in the displacement of their own leadership? To place a pacifist on the throne, no less. All for naught, of course, but such is the way with these little political coups. I’m sure your parents wouldn’t take it personally.” 

He was edging very, very close to a subject that threatened to summon the deepest parts of her ire. “You will not speak of them again, _aruetii,_ ” she growled softly. 

“I’m also told you look a great deal like your mother,” Maul continued, unmoved by the demand. "She must have been a very beautiful woman—"

Lightning quick, Sol’s hand flew up to strike his face— and was caught in his iron grip as he grabbed it and stopped her. She felt her lip curl to bare her teeth at him, and he responded with a dangerous little smile. 

“You are not as strong as a Jedi,” he reminded her. “I meant only to pay a compliment. But, I do not wish to fight. Let us shelve the subject for another time.” And he was lowering her hand back down towards her lap, easing the strength of his hold as if to skirt the possibility of bruising her. She jerked her arm away from him, fist balling tight. 

“So you’re going to keep me here to write my biography, then, _hut’uun?_ ” 

“Only if you are agreeable.” He frowned at her. “And I may not know your language, but I know that word, and I know that it’s rude. So I want to hear no more Mando’a when you speak to me.”

Raising a brow, Sol felt the urge to laugh at him. “ _Nar’sheb, shabuir,_ ” she spat contemptuously. “How will you stop me?” 

Without even a muscle-twitch of a warning, Maul’s hand flew up and struck her across the jaw. It moved so quickly that it reminded her of— of a Jedi. Too quick to be unassisted by the Force.

“That is far less than what will happen if you do it again,” he snarled, rising to his mechanical feet inside the cell. “I have done my best to give you a fresh start. Do not spit on my efforts.” Leaning down, he snatched the med kit up from the ground. Sol glowered at him from below, hand on her freshly smarting jaw, saying nothing. Yet again, a silence hung in the air between the two of them as he glared down his nose at her; two predators staring each other down, trying to decide just how much of a threat the other constituted. 

“I will see you again soon. I suggest you find a way to improve your mood between now and then, Lady Sol. You may not find that I am so generous with your impudence next time,” he pronounced finally. With that, he turned and marched out of the cell, the door sliding open and shut again to permit his passage. She was sure he’d made a point of not leaving another bacta patch for the quickly forming bruise on her jaw.

For a moment, the only thing she heard were her own breaths as she sat on the floor reeling from the strange encounter. The emotional whiplash was more upsetting than the fact that he’d hit her— she could still feel the effects of oscillating so wildly between anger and sadness, the dizzying wave of consolation his understanding had brought, the ache of her heart and the vacuum her parents had left in it still evident beneath it all. The fact that he was pretending to civility, to respect, even as he kept her here in prison, which meant that he had some motive he had not yet revealed. 

Then, she heard something else.

“Sol?” came a voice she’d heard before, but never so quiet nor so laden with trepidation. “Sol Tannor?” 

“Dutchess?” she asked in reply, the pale face of Satine Kryze pairing itself with the sound she heard. But, she must have been on the other side of the solid walls, voice traveling through the open places and the transparisteel.

“Sol! It _is_ you! How did you end up in here?” 

“Much like you did, I’m sure.” She hadn’t intended to make her reply so dry, but Sol was officially in a bad mood. 

“If by that you mean that Maul brought me here against my will, then yes,” Kryze replied. There was a little ice on the edge of her tone, but ultimately she’d struck at the true commonality between them as they sat there in the dull little cells. Sol took a deep breath. 

“He found me and my squad on Tatooine. We were there investigating activity in an old derelict droid factory, to make sure it wasn’t Separatists,” she said after a moment. 

“Your men are here as well?” 

At that, her heart sank through the permacrete floor. “No. I hope they all escaped Tatooine alive.” 

“Oh, dear,” Kryze said softly, and if nothing else her affect was genuine. “I will hope so with you.”

“ _Vor’e._ ”

“I did not know you trained with the Jedi.” 

Sol looked at her hands, felt the endless creaking ache of clenching and unclenching her fists. “So you heard that.” 

“Of course. I could scarcely help listening. I thought it strange that Maul should come here to tend to a prisoner himself.” Kryze sounded a little defensive, but she had a point. “Though I suppose it makes sense, if he is interested in you.” 

“Why do you say that?” the commando asked, frown severe despite the fact that the other woman couldn’t see it.

“He uses the Force, as I’m sure you know. There are no others here who do, save his brother, and that beast has been missing for a while now. My guess is that he is dead, though I know not how. His strength is monstrous.” The Dutchess’ voice got smaller as she continued, and her horror became more evident. In spite of the few incidents in Mandalorian history where a Force-sensitive was born among them, the _Mando’ade_ misliked and distrusted Force users in general and had a less than symbiotic relationship with the Jedi for reasons Sol had only too recently been reminded of. The interdiction fields of childhood ghost stories still lingered in the back of her mind after Moraga, passing thoughts that weighed on her in otherwise quiet moments. 

Even with her apparently fruitful connection with the Jedi, or at least with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Satine Kryze was apparently still unnerved by their ilk. Though, the contrast between this Zabrak and every Jedi that Sol had ever met was profound.

“I suppose he does,” she replied, voice low. “I’m certain I’ll get to find out.” 

“Do not let him trick you, Sol,” Kryze said earnestly. “He has deceived everyone, every citizen of Mandalore, even the Death Watch. They work for him, now. I have no doubt he’ll try to get you to do the same.” 

“He will not find me so easily cowed,” Sol growled. 

“I know he won't,” the Dutchess replied. “That’s why I said he would _trick_ you. He is a cunning speaker. I don’t know for certain, but I understand that the Force grants its users certain powers of manipulation. I would not put it past him to try it on you.” 

Sol paused for a moment, and felt the truth of Kryze’s words. The Dutchess did not think the young castaway of Clan Tannor was a coward. It sent a ripple through the blossoming pain that constant reminders of her parents were already generating, but it also amounted to something of a Mandalorian compliment. 

“I will be wary, then,” she replied at length. Pushing herself along the floor enough to sag her back against the wall, Sol let out a long breath. Kryze said nothing more, though it was almost palpable through the stale prison air that she had a dozen more questions lingering on her tongue. The silence was a mercy the young sergeant was relieved to accept.

She had to think of a way out of here and back to her squad, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i've been dealing with some serious fatigue these last couple of weeks, but i finally started in on this very important moment in Sol's arc and i'm really excited about it. i hope everyone is doing well and enjoys this chapter!!


	9. serpent

**_Mandalore, Sundari, Royal Palace_ **

In the beams of daylight that fell in their long slants down the length of the dining hall, Sol’s eyes were like twin suns staring down the table at her captor. Maul was at the high seat, of course, and she was facing him directly opposite. But this wasn’t the grand hall, so the table was short enough that she could still make out the smallest marks on his red and black-patterned face.

Before her there was a plate she had not yet touched, despite how ravenous she was. Starving a prisoner just a little before finally bringing them out to dine like a guest was clearly a tactic of some kind, she thought, though what the Zabrak wanted of her was still obfuscated. 

“Eat, Lady Sol,” he urged her from where he sat, not yet touching his own plate. “You must be hungry.” 

She said nothing, and her eyes did not waver from his. Maul rolled his eyes and sighed as though long-suffering. “I suppose you want me to eat first? You suspect poison, or some other treachery?”

“If you wanted to kill me, I’d already be dead,” she replied.

“Then why not eat?” He raised a brow.

“There are other betrayals than death.” 

“My lady, you are too suspicious.”

“And it has kept me alive.”

“Starving,” he said, lifting his fork to spear a piece of meat and hold it upright before him, “will _not_ keep you alive, however.” Then he took the bite, chewed it, swallowed. Her stomach panged. As he continued to eat at a leisurely pace, Sol deliberated. 

He had a point. She was weaker on an empty stomach, which made his willingness to feed her even more confusing. Keeping an enemy weak, particularly if they were already in your custody, greatly decreased their likelihood of escape. So what was his goal, if not that?

But at last her body won out— better to have eaten and be prepared for whatever happened next anyway. The first bite was tentative; as the flavor of real meat cooked long and slow in its own juices burst over her tongue, though, she began to eat as much as her stomach would allow. 

“That’s much better, isn’t it?” Maul asked, taking a drink from his goblet. Ancient craft, created for the use of the _Mand’alor_ themself, whoever they were at a given time. Everything in the palace was something old and steeped in the culture of her blood, and there was something unsettling about how much it called to her. After almost a lifetime alone, it felt like the possibility of strength wrapped around her, a strength more concrete than that other ineffable thing that carried her. A strength she was now denied, and could not trust.

Sol did not speak again until her plate was empty, her water drained, the sharpened ache of her body dulled by nourishment. Then, she put her fork on the plate and pushed it away from her seat. 

“I have the feeling that expecting your gratitude will only yield me disappointment,” Maul mused from the other side of the table. The flat stare she offered in return seemed to answer that clearly enough. He sat back a little in his chair and examined her as though he hadn’t also been watching her eat, observing her like a stalking loth-wolf. “Nevermind. That is a lesson for later. Now, if you would be so kind, I have questions for you to answer.” 

“And if I refuse?” she asked. 

“Surely you would not prolong your stay in my detention cells just for the sake of being stubborn. What better recourse do you have? You do not yet know what I can offer in return for your cooperation.”

“Maybe you should lead with that, next time.” 

Maul frowned. “It is your answers that will determine what I am able to give.”

“Then ask.” Sol’s expression never faltered from stern, immobile antagonism. She wasn’t yet looking for an excuse to break from stone into fire; clearly this Zabrak would find a way to catalyze that himself, if their prior interactions were any indication. 

“My first question, then, is this: did the Jedi train you in the use of the Force?”

“Some.”

“What did they teach you?” 

Sol’s eyes flickered as she recalled two years of fruitless and frustrating attempts at meditation as she toiled to unlearn every attachment, tried to abandon her pain in favor of the calm implacability of the Guard. How badly she had wanted to scoop every feeling out of herself, then. To be truly without tethers to this world that had wasted no time breaking her heart. 

“They tried to teach me non-attachment, to the degree it is practiced by the Temple Guard. I was unsuccessful,” she said at last. 

“Jedi,” growled Maul with a look of disdain. “They think themselves so very high above the rest of us, so _detached._ Did they teach you anything about harnessing its power, using it in combat?” 

Mace Windu’s words echoed faint in her head. “I was and remain unable to command it in combat,” she replied, jaw tightening. “I was taught, in theory, to harness its strength when it comes and direct it to a higher purpose.” 

“Indeed.” He stroked his chin. “Yet you do use it in combat. The pain you feel, it drives you forward, does it not? The Force is the wind at your back, the power in your strikes. You fight powerfully, more than you would without it.” 

“Without it, I would not fight at all.” The shame burned through her throat as she said it, but she knew it was true. Without the Force, she would be nothing. Every moment would be agony. It stung to speak it aloud. “But that is not the same strength as a Jedi would use in battle.”

“Curious.” The way his brow wrinkled just a little and his eyes narrowed, he seemed sincerely perplexed. “And what happens when its strength does come?” 

Sol glanced down at her hands where they rested in her lap, moving her fingers slowly. “Death,” she replied as she looked back up at him. 

Maul seemed pleased at this. “And can you direct it, as you were taught?” 

“No.” 

“Oh?” he asked, brows lifting a little. “Then what?”

“Whoever invokes my fury dies.”

“That seems fairly well-directed, to me.” 

“The choice does not feel like my own,” she said, trying for the first time to explain what happened when that blood-red fury came over her. “It is pure reaction. Its anger burns, and some die who should have been left to live.”

“So, do you regret the deaths you have caused?” he asked, and his eyes glittered intently.

“I’ve killed those who would have been better interrogated, who my commanding officers—”

“No, Lady Sol. Not your superiors. Not your friends, your… fellow soldiers. _You,_ in your own heart. Do you regret them? Do you feel guilt?” he asked.

The image of the Falleen girl who had so nearly murdered Swift and Twofer came up first, the way her beady eyes bulged with the tight grip of the Force on her neck and the plasma blade in her chest. On its heels was the sound of Thar Viszla’s choking gurgle as she severed his brain stem, the sound of his condescending barks from on high when he evoked his murder of her mother.

The sound of nearly a dozen bounty hunters, some actually worth their salt, howling and hitting the dirt on that cursed cliff ledge on Lysatra as she fired on them, dropping them one by one, their shots all missing as the Force warned her again and again that they were coming. The sight of her father’s crumpled body on the rocks below. The look on Mace Windu’s face as he held out his hand to subdue her, holding her still as the last of her relentless fury drained and left her completely and utterly alone. 

“No,” she said softly. 

Maul reclined even deeper into his seat, a dangerous half-smile on his face. “Revenge is so often deserved, is it not?” he asked. “Are some hurts not worthy of repaying in kind?”

For a moment, she wasn’t sure whether to agree or disagree. The Jedi were taught not to waste life if it could be helped; she realized, though, that she didn’t believe the beings she had killed could be left alive. Their crimes rendered them abhorrent, their beliefs and the things they served— from Mandalore to their own coin purses— navigated through violence. 

“The Republic wanted some of them alive, for information, and to stand trial.” she said. “It wasn’t my place to decide their fates.”

“And does the mighty Republic serve true justice?” Maul growled in reply, gripping the arms of his chair and learning forward in it. “Or do they busy themselves with trade and money, bickering like children while the rest of us suffer and fight for our lives? Do the Jedi truly deliver the innocent from their plights?”

“Certainly the Black Sun, and the Pikes, and the Hutts do not!” she retorted sharply. “The Death Watch does not. Don’t parlay ideals with me, usurper. If you lead these _besome,_ then you are no agent of justice.”

She had expected him to bristle, to rise up in anger and strike at her. At least to rebuke her for the Mando’a insult, to garner some pain or another. When he leaned back and regarded her with slightly narrowed eyes and a conspicuous lack of malice, it surprised her.

“I suppose that is because we operate upon the true rule of the galaxy: the weak perish, and the strong survive. But that does not negate the reality that the Jedi and the Republic pretend to justice while failing to deliver it. Perhaps you have already served more justice than they would have in taking your revenge,” he said.

“That depends on what you call justice.” Her mouth was tight, her face a mask of resistance. But somewhere in her heart, something deep was stirred out of a place it had never before left.

She had chosen to remain in the GAR, to fight for something that she only passively believed in. But, the lawless places of the galaxy offered no better respite, and the people of her birth made up their own rules to justify their violence. The Jedi’s conviction that the Republic was good and right had been passed on to her, and she had not questioned it. Even more than that, their absolute dedication to preserving it despite its flaws was now what she spent her life in service of. Despite the opposition to treating its soldiers like persons, the blind eye it turned to creatures like the Hutts and trades like slavery and spice, the thousands of years worth of Mandalorian blood on its hands that it made no effort to atone for. The Jedi were not only complicit, but they had assisted actively in the slaughter of the _Mando’ade._ Surely, her ancestral people were not the only beings who had risen defiant and been met with something the Jedi allowed to mean _justice._

The ground felt as though it had been torn from beneath her feet, and she felt herself twist up tight around the conflict that erupted inside her. Maul, however, seemed to release the tension in his body as the threat of harm vanished from his movements, his posture.

“And how would you define justice, my lady?” he asked, a smile not quite touching his features. The image of Thar Viszla flashed back again, the words she had uttered as she cut him from his mortal coil.

 _This is_ my _justice, not yours._

On its heels was the image of the dimly lit interior of 79’s Clone Bar, Rex’s face looking at her with so much unconditional support as he told her that moment had indeed been justice— and she had disagreed. _Death isn’t justice,_ she’d said. _My mother wouldn’t have wanted me to kill him._

Which did she believe? Both moments had been sincere, but in the quiet glow of that sweet evening with her brothers and Torrent Company, had she regretted what she’d done after all? Or had she simply hoped that, with her mother’s murderer at last returned to the oversoul, that her father’s restless ghost would be at peace? That her anger would finally ebb?

Drongar proved ever so clearly that it had not ebbed at all. In fact, it seemed only to grow.

When she made no answer, could find none, Maul let his smile curl over his face. “I think perhaps we might ask someone else,” he said, and turned to one of the guards that dotted the hall with a snap of his fingers. Nodding, the armored figure tapped the commlink on his wrist. Looking back at Sol, Maul bade her rise with his finger as he took to his feet. 

“Come, come,” he cooed, stepping towards the doors to the hall that lead to the throne room. Cautiously she rose and followed him, leaving at least the distance of the dining table between them. 

The throne room of the Royal Palace was a sight to behold. Its vaulted ceiling was adorned with colorful transparisteel panels, with massive stone columns lining its entirety, filigreed in electrum and chromium. And, between each of them, murals that spanned almost the entire wall— images of the _Mando’ade_ in battle. They cut down their enemies, which spanned a great many different species and kinds. But none so often as the _Jettise,_ with glowing lightsabers of every color. Even the ancient Taung, the progenitors of the creed, waged war against the early Jedi forces as their crusades swept the galaxy.

The doors behind Sol opened, and she heard three sets of feet. Two booted, one slippered. They stuttered uncomfortably against each other, steps far from in line. Then, Satine Kryze came around from behind, her escort gripping both of her arms in spite of the shackles that pinned her hands together. They stopped to Sol’s right, some halfway between her and the Zabrak who now stood nearby the throne with his hands tucked behind his back.

“Let me go!” Kryze barked at them, jerking away fruitlessly.

“Guards,” Maul scolded; they promptly released their holds and flanked her, blasters held over their chests. Kryze shook off the indignity, straightening her shoulders and standing proudly with hands bound. She cast one worried look at Sol, then met Maul’s gaze with the same stony reserve. 

“Miss Kryze, perhaps you might lend us your perspective as the former ruler of these proud people,” he began. “I have no doubt that you believe in a very specific notion of justice.” 

“I do indeed,” the Dutchess replied, standing even taller.

“Pray, enlighten us.”

For a moment, Kryze paused and glanced between the two of them again. Sol was doing the same, wondering what Maul’s endgame was but curious nonetheless to hear the response.

“Justice is deliverance of the innocent from suffering, protecting them. It is seeking a peaceful punishment of the guilty, that they may understand that there are consequences for their actions which will affect them as long as they continue to do harm. Violence is never a part of justice, but I wouldn't expect you to understand that.” 

“Forgive me my humor at your expense,” chuckled Maul, “but it truly astonishes me that you thought you could rule Mandalore, of all the places in the galaxy, with such a doctrine. Admirable, to be sure, but foolish.” 

“The New Mandalorian movement was spreading for good reason. It was high time our traditions changed,” Kryze said, her brow furrowing. “We were once a warrior people, but that was when there was a need to fight. Then we became tyrants, conquerors. With intergalactic trade and diplomacy, the time has come for peace among my people. Instead of seeing that, we have persisted for thousands of years to antagonize the rest of the galaxy, and turn on each other. The Death Watch, especially, continues to specialize in needless bloodshed.”

“Curious, then, that it was a member of the Death Watch who delivered you from their first insurrection during your attempt to rule,” Maul replied, his red and yellow eyes sliding over to Sol. “A traitor to her own clan’s notions of justice.”

“I see you’ve been talking to my sister,” Kryze said, voice both pointed and heavy with sadness. Sol eyed the Dutchess, surprised. There had never been any mention from her father of any Kryze sister. Then, she thought back to the derelict factory on Tatooine, and the Mando woman who had attacked her there.

“Yes, two sisters on opposing sides of a bloody conflict. Very poetic.” The Zabrak rolled his eyes. “I find the real question, though, is why a member of the Death Watch would risk her life to save you.” 

Now the Dutchess looked at Sol, and her face was difficult to read. “Shyla Tannor swore fealty to the Death Watch when she life-bonded with Nom, but I... believe she began to disagree with their ideals.”

“Convenient, for you,” Maul mused. “Not so for her, though, I have heard.”

Sol’s gut tightened. The way Kryze was speaking felt veiled, despite the fact that what she said aligned with the way her father had always praised her mother. _Shyla saw through the traditions I never could,_ he had said once. _The_ Kyr’tsad _always wanted power. That was the bottom line, wasn’t it? And they didn’t care who had to die for them to take more of it. Zealots, all of them._

And yet, something was being withheld. 

“Unfortunately, their idea of justice included executing her for assisting me, yes,” said Kryze. Heavy words that still came through Sol’s ears radiant with pain and loss. And now, with the fear that her mother was not who she’d always been told she was. 

“Did this never trouble you, Lady Sol?” Maul asked her, and it was more than clear that his concern was disingenuous. 

“Did it trouble me to lose my mother when I was five years old?” she snapped. “To grow up without her, watching my father rot in his misery and guilt? To hear him cry after he got drunk and raged through some backwater cantina, and listen to him beg her spirit for forgiveness while I hid inside a smuggler’s hold on our ship? To have no family, no place to go when he neglected me or frightened me? Did that _trouble_ me?” 

“Sol—”

“ _Ne’johaa!_ ” she barked, cutting off Kryze’s attempt to be placating as she whirled on her. “I was a child when the _Kyr’tsad_ took my mother from me. I was born to a pack of bloodthirsty hounds who are still trying to tear each other apart, and _you_ are no better for all your talk of pacifism, Satine Kryze. Your insistence on wresting the _Mando’ade_ from their own heritage by seizing a high office didn’t break the history you speak of, it only used a different strategy.”

“Your mother risked everything for me! Do you not think I would repay that if I could?” the Dutchess asked with widening eyes. “If the New Mandalorians had succeeded the first time, she would still be with you!” 

“But she isn’t.” Sol’s eyes were hard, focused on the pale woman’s face. “And killing Thar Viszla didn’t bring her back, just as slaughtering the entire Death Watch wouldn't. I would do it anyway, if I thought it was what she wanted. There’s a reason I never wanted to turn back to this cursed place,” she said as her eyes settled on Maul to glare through her white brows.

“Most understandably,” he replied, but there was still a lurking, malevolent delight behind his mask of acceptance.

“If you hoped to gain something from me by pursuing this further, I suggest you change tactics.” 

“Of course.” He waved his hand, and the two guards stepped forth to seize Kryze’s arms once again and began marching her out of the throne room.

“Wait! Sol, please!” she cried out, struggling against her constraints. “He’s manipulating you!” But her cries vanished behind the heavy doors, and Sol heard her heart thumping in her ears. She scowled at Maul, and he was a serpent looking back at her. 

“I can feel your anger, Lady Sol,” he purred. “There is so much potential within you. With the power of the darkness, you could destroy everyone who ever hurt you or the ones you love.”

“And what would that achieve?” she growled back. Even as she asked, she could feel the part of her that still wanted revenge in spite of the taste of it she already knew, the taste that somehow left her unsatisfied when it should have been the proper portion.

“Whatever you decided it could,” said Maul. “Only you can imagine what to do with such power. And only _I_ can help your power grow. The Jedi will not.” 

She eyed him. Of course, she already knew that the Jedi had put forth all the effort they ever would when it came to training her. Mace Windu had passed on his knowledge in the abstract, against the wishes of the Council. Because, as he had put it, she needed to know in case the Force ever touched her life more powerfully. 

The only thing that had come of those touches was destruction, each one with its own benefits and losses. Each one ambiguous and ultimately self-serving. She flexed her fists, wishing there was something she could pummel all her rage into without having to face the cold reality of death. But the red that was still lurking at the edges of her vision would not be satisfied with anything else, she had a feeling. 

At least she understood what her captor wanted, now.

“I don’t need your training,” she said, taking breaths to ease the sharp edge of anger out of her tone. “There is enough destruction in the galaxy without me adding to it.” 

“You hope to see an end to that destruction? By helping the Republic win another in its long history of wars?” He crossed his arms, expression darkening. When she didn't reply, he shook his head. “Very well. You are young and naive, in spite of all your warrior blood. When that naivete is shattered, perhaps then you will consider another path.” 

With that, he waved his guards to her side, and for a split second she considered killing them both. But there were more behind them, and then Maul himself, and then fighting her way to something with a hyperdrive to then fight her way out of the atmosphere and the safety of hyperspace. It was more than she had the knowledge or the tools to accomplish, just yet. A little more time, though. 

So she let them cuff her and lead her away, Maul’s scowl following her until they departed the throne room. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gotta love former-Darth "i will try to get ANYONE to become by apprentice" Maul :D


	10. alarm

**_Chardaan, Republic 16th Sector Army Headquarters_ **

Anakin was sitting in the cockpit of his _Actis_ as it sat in the eerily empty hangar bay of the Republic base with no intention of going anywhere. The lights were on at broadly spaced intervals, and one caught the yellow edge of the starfighter’s wing before collapsing the rest of it, and him, into a penumbra of gloom. 

The whole row of blast doors was shut at that moment, save a half-sized one at the far end of the long bay that was open but shielded. Movement around the base had been sluggish, the last 36 standard hours downright boring. But for the first time since the war had begun Anakin found himself unwilling to push for redeployment. High Command was no doubt sorting out a location for he and his men to go— the fighting seemed as daunting and endless as it ever had. In Umbara’s wake, though, he noticed his soldiers’ spirits were… different. 

Not weakened, per say. Some of them had rallied, turned the entire ordeal into fuel for carrying forward. But others were starting to show a weariness he’d never before noticed on a clone, one that he was sure was the result of the blow not just to morale but to _trust_ that the entire venture with Krell had dealt. 

His men needed each other a thousand times more than they needed him, he thought. While they had proven that at the battle of Umbara, the effort had cost something he couldn’t describe. A fundamental part of their connective tissue was still healing. And he was in no rush to push them back out into battle if they needed just a breath longer to fortify themselves, this time around.

As though summoned by his darkened thoughts, Anakin felt the presence of Rex before he saw his blonde head come around the rear of the Actis. 

“Hope I’m not interrupting anything,” the Captain of the 501st said. He was still in his armor, of course— the men seemed wary of taking it off unless they were back at home on Coruscant. 

“I was just having a party, actually,” Anakin replied wryly. “Very exclusive. Black-tie. Better check the list.” 

Rex chuckled, ever good-natured. “I’m crashin’ the party if I’m not on the list, I hope you know.” 

“Oh, I’m counting on it.” 

“Good.”

Anakin turned his head to look at the clone, sensing the dissonance ever more acutely. “How are the men, Rex?” he asked, voice quieter than usual.

“They’re fine, sir. Fit as fiddles, all of ‘em.”

“I mean how’s morale?” 

“Not so bad as you might think, sir.” Of course, Rex already knew what he was worrying about. More than a year in the trenches together meant that with or without the Force, the two men knew each other’s moods almost instinctively. “I think they’re patching up quicker than I expected. I was worried for a minute there, but they’re good lads.”

“I know they’ll recover, Rex,” Anakin said. “But it’s hard to miss the feeling that they are still a little broken.” 

“I know, sir.” Rex sighed. “I know they will. But sometimes I just dunno if I’m doing enough. Or, maybe I’m doing too much.” 

“You’ve been overthinking this for a while,” the General pointed out. “Trust your gut. You know these men. They will let you know when they need something.”

“Yeah, I reckon so.” 

“What about you?” Anakin asked, raising an eyebrow. “How are _you_ doing?” 

“Maybe a little better than I thought I’d be, too,” Rex replied, less than enthusiastically. But there was an undercurrent of something else, too, something that wasn’t as close to the forefront of his mind as the wellbeing of his men, and that contrasted it sharply. 

“Oh yeah?” 

Rex rubbed the back of his blonde head. “Um, yes. Sir.” 

“How’s your girlfriend?” The direct route was always going to be the easiest one with his captain, of course. Immediately the clone blinked and emanated startled embarrassment.

“Er, I…” He had to know that it was useless to try and hide things from a Jedi, so his overly-enthusiastic proclamation of innocence died on his lips. “It’s… she’s good. At least, she was the last time I saw her. Which was some two days ago, now.” 

“Don’t look so guilty, Rex,” Anakin teased the other man with a grin. “I was waiting for you two to get together. For a long time, actually.” 

“You were?” His startled expression was more than a little endearing.

“Pretty much since the day you two met in the hangar bay back at HQ, yeah. Took you both long enough, though.” 

“Too long,” Rex murmured half to himself, rubbing the back of his head again and looking away sheepishly. The memory of their night in his room, the day after, the heady bliss of pretending nothing else existed for just a little while… Anakin could feel it pouring off of Rex in waves, and it broadened his grin. 

“It’s good to see you have one thing in your life that makes you happy right now, you know,” he said. “War is hell, I know, but love is worth fighting for.” 

“Love, yeah,” Rex replied, and for once his emotions were muddled. Like he wanted to agree wholeheartedly, but something about the word _love_ seemed to be interrupting his enthusiasm. The loss of Faro was still somewhere in his heart, and he would have to peel back the layers of it delicately. “You’re right, sir.”

Before Anakin could issue his reply, the commlink on Rex’s vambrace chirped. He glanced at his general as if seeking approval to accept the call, and the Jedi nodded and waved his hand. There was nothing urgent or secret about their banter, despite its seclusion in the otherwise empty hangar.

“Captain Rex here,” said the clone as he activated the link. 

“Cap’n, this is Swift,” came the reply, and there was unmistakable panic in the fuzzy voice. That caught Anakin off guard, and his head whipped back around to look at the blinking light and furrow his brow. Rex looked equally as concerned. 

“Cronos? Is everything okay?” 

“Sol. They took her.”

The way Rex’s face went from warm brown to ashen drained the joy out of the room. “ _Took_ her?”

“I don’t have time to explain, but she’s in big trouble. She’s been kidnapped by someone from the Shadow Collective— we think they took her to Mandalore.”

“Mandalore—?”

“We’re gonna go try and extract her, but these guys have resources. We need your help.”

“Torrent Company’s awaiting redeployment,” Rex said, his harrowed eyes now moving up towards Anakin. “We might get orders any day now.”

“Well, can you redeploy yourself in our direction?” 

“We can’t launch a whole battalion—”

“No, this isn’t a battle, it’s stealth ops,” Swift replied sharply. “We have one goal: get in, get her, and get out. We could really use a Jedi, but—”

“Stand by and I’ll find out,” Rex said, and he pushed and held down a button on his vambrace and stared back up at his general. “Sir—”

“I can deploy you, and you can take one more with you,” Anakin said, cutting him off as he rose out of his seat inside the open cockpit. “An ARC. But I can’t go myself without drawing a lot of attention, and the Council won’t like that over just one soldier, even if it’s Sol. I can cover you, though, when our orders come in. And if you’re not in touch within three standard days, I’ll make sure the first thing we do is come get you.”

“Understood, sir,” Rex replied, and despite his inertia there was crystal clear gratitude on his face. He released the button on the commlink. “Swift, you still with me?”

“Right here, Cap’n.”

“I’m coming and I’m bringing Fives with me. How should I find you?”

“We’ll come to you. Transmit your coordinates, we’ll decrypt and let you know how long ‘til we’re there.”

“Alright,” the captain replied with a nod. Just as he went to turn off the link, Swift’s voice came back once more.

“Thank you, Rex.” 

“‘Course.” 

The surge of focus that welled up from Rex in that moment as he looked back up at Anakin was more pointed and angry than any he’d ever seen. Clones had a tendency to get riled up, sure, but there was something like joy in combat for them; it was their purpose, their skillset, and their job. Anger at the enemy was generalized and had an impersonal flavor even when it was roused over a particular event. The sadness and confusion of Umbara had been more poignant, more palpable, left its much clearer ripple in the force. 

But _this_ anger, Anakin recognized very deeply. 

“Go,” was all he said when he met that brown, furious gaze. 

“Thank you, sir,” Rex replied, already turning to run at a dead sprint out of the hangar, back to the barracks, back to the rest of his armor and munitions. Anakin watched him go, feeling his heart pick up just a little. Sol was his friend, and his captain’s lover, and Mace Windu’s ward. She was a force to be reckoned with, he knew, and that made him twice as anxious about whoever it was that had taken her— and _why_ they had was another concern entirely. He wanted to help Rex himself, truth be told; but, the tangle of war meant that the Republic taking armed troops openly to Mandalore, leader of the neutral systems, would have more fallout than whatever hell he met with. High Command would likely task Cronos Squad with the job of retrieving their own sergeant, and Rex’s involvement would have been declined based on the need for him to remain with Anakin. Sol was pretty damn scrappy, and her boys were a powerful team. Commandos were supposed to take care of themselves— bred and trained to do it, no matter the scenario. 

But the rest of Cronos was scared, if they were asking for the help of a Jedi. That was nothing to be snuffed at, either. Nothing in Anakin’s heart could ever deny Rex the right to rescue his love— just as nothing had ever stopped him if it were Padme who was spirited away, which it so often was. Covering for his captain was the best he could do for now, the only way he could foresee them all coming out alright in the end and none of his actions leading to possible antagonism with Mandalore.

And where was Obi-Wan’s definitely-not-girlfriend in all of this? Surely she wasn’t involved in the abduction of Sol Tannor? But no, Swift had said it. This was a Shadow Collective operation. There was something more at work here, and he couldn’t sort out what. It was profoundly frustrating to know that a whole swath of the puzzle was missing. 

Three days, he reminded himself. If he didn’t know in three days, it would be high time to find out. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the boys gotta go get their sarge!! and frankly i appreciate Anakin for being supportive even though it's lowkey the rules... that's kind of his thing xD  
> Anakin is the biggest shipper i don't make the rules


	11. legacy found

_**Mandalore, Sundari, Royal Palace** _

The second time Sol was brought out into the dining hall to eat, she was alone but for the guards who watched her. She ate ravenously, unabashed in the wake of another day and a half of an empty stomach and no water. Satine was still her neighbor, but hadn’t tried to speak to her at all during that time. Part of Sol was pushing against this, urging her to make the air between herself and the Dutchess less tense. They had more in common than not, at least in this place. But Mandalorian pride is stubborn, and for that time at least, it prevailed. 

Once she was finished eating, the guards surrounded her and bade her stand. Her bonds still gripped her wrists, and she was compliant enough that none of them saw fit to be rough with her as she marched inside their little cluster to some new part of the palace. 

Or, perhaps they had been ordered not to.

It was a sparring room, of all places, that they led her to. There was Maul, of course, awaiting her with reptilian patience. His expression was cool as he waved the guards off, and she was left alone in the room with him. With his strange decorum, he approached her and opened the lock on the cuffs around her wrists.

“I trust the meal was suitable for you, Lady Sol?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied, all stone. Maul just raised an eyebrow. 

“Eventually I will have to insist upon you saying thank you, you know,” he chided her. Sol made no reply, which he clearly expected. He sighed anyway. “Today I would like to put you to a test of strength. To see more clearly what you have been taught before me.”

A side-door on the opposite end of the room opened, and a young man Sol didn’t recognize emerged. He was tall, pale-skinned, and blonde, young by his looks. He was wearing simple training robes, and he stopped at the opposite edge of the mat from her. 

She eyed Maul after sizing up her opponent. Was it meant to insult her, pitting this green boy against someone of her heritage? Or did he not know? 

“You may begin,” Maul said. The blonde boy nodded, and immediately took up a stance. It was a classic tae-jitsu, and once again she wondered how skilled he could possibly be. But she dropped to her own stance, and waited. 

The boy was impatient (or nervous) enough. He struck first; she blocked with a twist, feinted once, and then struck him across the gut and slammed a blade-hand hard on his neck. The boy was on the floor in seconds flat, gasping and holding his middle. 

“Very good,” grinned Maul. “You may go,” he added to the boy, who staggered to his feet and fumbled away. Before he was gone, another fighter was emerging from the same door. This one was shorter, sturdier, older looking. He was in light leather sparring armor over his robes. “I trust you won’t find the armor to be an unfair advantage, will you, my lady?”

“No.” Sol’s face was unreadable but for its everpresent unhappiness, and her golden eyes did not leave her opponent. He took up a stance; one of the more advanced Echani forms, she thought as she dropped into her own ready-pose. 

This fight was only a few seconds longer than the first, her agile jabs weaving around his heavy strikes too quickly for the weight of his movements to keep up with. First the armpit, then back of the knee sent him to the floor and one swift crack at the back of his neck leveled him flat. Maul looked delighted.

“Oh, _very_ good,” he cooed. “You have quite the skillset, Lady Sol.”

“How many others?” she asked. 

“I suppose we’ll see how far you make it along,” he replied. “Next!” 

And so a parade of fighters emerged one by one, all trained in variations of Echani, tae-jitsu, or even the ancient Gravik-nez form. One had a few K’thri moves, but none were acrobatic enough to out-maneuver Sol. It seemed to her that Maul truly was unaware of the history of Clan Tannor, and their mastery of hand-to-hand combat. She never once broke into any of the techniques she’d learned while at the Jedi temple; it was better not to reveal all of one’s skills to the enemy at a time. 

“Quite the proficient fighter, aren’t you?” Maul mused after her tenth win, with a smarmy grin on his face. He rose to stand from where he’d been lounging on a bench. “Most impressive. Even aside from the Force, you are well-trained.” 

Stalking around the mat like a predator around his prey, Maul regarded her a little more closely than she liked. But she said nothing, only turned to keep her eyes on him as he moved. It did not surprise her at all when his metal feet stepped up onto the mat pointed directly at her. 

“Perhaps none of these fighters can challenge you properly,” he said, and slowly altered his posture until he was in a high starting stance of Echani. Sol narrowed her eyes, already matching him in a low stance. She was bluffing, of course, but so was he. Neither of them would fall back on something so basic as Echani, not unless he was only testing her. And she suspected that his tests would not be so simple, anyway. 

It wasn’t a surprise when Maul attacked first, clean and direct. He was not above trickery, she felt certain, but he also had a certain transparency about him that she found evident in his first few strikes. She dodged, then blocked, then dodged again. After that it was not so simple, and their fight became a series of rapid movements broken by lulls of silence where they circled and stared one another down. The first one to break those silences was also Maul.

“Your mind is very calm in combat, Lady Sol,” he observed while he crouched and side-stepped. He was taller than her, but the bend in his knees brought them to eye level as she walked upright, just bent at the spine enough to stay limber.

“And yours is never calm, I think,” she replied, voice even. 

“Yet I have mastery over my turmoil.”

“Hm.” Her impassive expression only barely colored with doubt at that statement, but she knew his words were meant to sting. And maybe they did, but it wasn’t an unfamiliar sensation.

“Is that what you seek?” he asked. “Mastery over those moments when you wield death like a blade?” 

“You would help me prevent them?” she replied, brow raised.

“I would help you direct them.” Half a pause, half a malicious smile, and then he was leaping at her again and breaking the Echani pattern with some other style that was less refined, more brutal, favoring strength over speed. She met every strike, and feinted once or twice to try a few of her own. They were all blocked or dodged, but with every movement he revealed a little more. 

“You are fighting like a Jedi,” he frowned as they went back to stalking around the mat. “All defense, no action.”

“I am fighting like a warrior,” she said simply. And then, just to see what he would do, she launched her first attack at him. 

His blocks were restrained, she thought; the muscles of his arms limited their action when they wanted to throw their weight in full behind each movement. He hated being on the defensive, that was clear enough. He was also holding back. She flipped easily between Echani and a few heavy Gravik-nez strikes, favoring strength the way he just had. None landed, as she expected.

They circled again. This time was quieter at first, both figures in a deep crouch. 

“What will you do when that power comes over you again?” he asked after a moment. “When you can kill so easily?”

“I’ll hope I’m killing someone who deserves it,” she replied.

“And if they don’t?”

“I guess we’ll find out.” 

If there was a right answer, she didn’t know what it was. But that felt like the wrong answer, somehow, and a cruel smile played over Maul’s features. “Oh, we will indeed,” he purred. 

His next attack was ferocious, monumentally moreso than the ones before it, and the Force wrapped itself around her to carry her into an intuitive dance where no style was sacrosanct, no technique more important than blocking and striking and counter-striking. She reacted until she found his pattern, an unwitting one that took quite a long time to betray itself— he had a tendency to come in hard, push, then fall back on more subtle attempts punctuated with a few heavy strikes that sought an opening to continue their brutal onslaught. Sometimes he even let her push him a little back before he relaunched his sequence. 

She finally saw her in, like the fight was a complex web of overlapping strands that knit together tightly until they started to unravel. A weak spot, a place where the pattern could be broken. Something she knew was hidden in every fight, though she’d only ever heard Mace Windu suggest it before, now revealing itself to her as plainly as it ever had. Something she had always seen, but rarely quite so vividly.

Striking under his high jab, she feinted twice before ducking under him and landing both hands clumped together in a fist on his low back. With his center of gravity thrown off, Maul stumbled and lurched forward just in time for her high round kick to thud into his cheekbone and knock him over.

The pain in that moment wasn’t hers, for once. It was his, and it exploded all over the room in a strange way. It had to be the Force, she reckoned, but it had never revealed another person’s emotions to her as it did in that moment. It took her a moment to realize that it was her own emotion thrown back at her, the familiar ache in her chest magnified a thousand times, shame and hot anger on its heels. 

Maul snarled, instantly furious as he twisted and sprang back up. But Sol was simply in a ready-stance a few meters away, playing by the rules of a more conservative spar by going in bouts rather than assuming this was to be an all-out brawl. If she’d kept going, she could have done much more harm before the moment ended and the opening she’d found shut itself again. The black hole on the other side of that opening, though, was enough to make her wary. 

_...I said he would trick you,_ came Satine’s words from days before through her mind.

Just as they did, the Zabrak stopped himself. The fury fought for mastery of his expression, his body, but he beat it back. Her awareness of it even ebbed, and he kept a nearly-upright stance as he breathed slowly and deeply. 

“Do you see what I mean, now?” he asked. She narrowed her eyes at him. 

“What should I see?” 

His brow furrowed. “Lady Sol, you are smarter than that. I did not kill you just now, though I certainly wanted to, for a moment.” 

“That’s the difference between us,” she said. “You stopped wanting to. I do not.”

“I suppose you make a fair point,” ceded Maul, dropping his stance rather abruptly. “But there are others that I have wanted to kill for a long time. When the time comes, I wonder who will stop me?” 

Sol gave all the appearance of having dropped her own stance, but every muscle in her body was still tight with preparation to respond. She found nothing to say, no reason to offer her thoughts on his rhetorical question. He certainly seemed capable of killing someone he really wanted to, or dying in the attempt. 

“I believe that concludes our lesson for today,” he said at last, clasping his hands behind his back. 

Before she could say anything else, the guards who had escorted her that morning from her cell reappeared. They marched up to her and took her by the arms, not especially rough but far from gentle. Maul plucked the cuffs she’d been wearing off of the bench where he’d left them and approached her once again. 

She held out her arms, wrists already together. Every day was more and more data she would need in the slowly blossoming plan of escape she was building. Wrapping the durasteel circlets around her and clasping them shut one at a time, the Zabrak met her stare with his strange yellow eyes. If her face was locked into something of a scowl, his was strangely absent of one. He regarded her for a long moment, as though he found her just a shade more than simply curious. 

And then she was being towed away without another word, taken back to her bleak little cell. She wondered absently if they would starve her again, make her wait for another few days before she was brought back to the dining hall. Once her cuffs were removed and the transparisteel door sealed, she sat back on the little bench along the wall and let out a breath. 

“Sol?” came a voice from next door. Pride and frustration rose in her throat. 

“I have nothing to say to you, Satine Kryze,” she growled. 

“Then say nothing, but _listen,_ ” the other woman replied, trying to keep her voice low but still audible. “I wish it were under any other circumstances than this, but I may never have another chance to tell you about your mother.”

For a moment, Sol almost snapped at her. It was the habitual, visceral response from her gut. But something held her back, and she bit down on her tongue. Some part of her knew she had to know, after avoiding it for so many years. Maybe she was avoiding nothing at all. 

“Shyla was one of the group that called themselves the True Mandalorians,” Kryze began again. “They followed _Mand’alor_ Jaster Mereel, and the Death Watch splintered from them—”

“I know the True Mandalorians,” Sol cut her off somewhat less sharply than she’d intended to. B’arin Apma’s voice floated back to her from memory, talking of serving the ‘true Mandalore’ when she was on Kamino training with the clones. And beyond that, her father’s words. _They might’ve had more scruples than we did, but in their efforts to keep power they lost them. They were hypocrites, and we were savages._ Vode an, _hah! Fools all, in the end._

“Of course,” said Kryze. “Shyla was a foundling, sworn to them from an early age and taken in by Clan Myles. But I met her first when I was very young. My father was on the ruling council of Kalevala, and Balder City had begun to flourish under the pacifist movement. She… was among the warriors who sacked it.

“We were terrified, of course, me and my sister, Bo Katan. Our parents were away, out to dinner. Your mother… she kicked down the door of our home. She found no one to kill until she found us.” 

Sol swallowed, suddenly listening quite closely, a quagmire of emotions turning into a gray wall in her chest until the tale was fully spun. 

“We had no weapons. We cowered before her— well. I did. My sister, on the other hand, was brave enough to to at least try to fight back with words. She said that at least, if we were to be murdered, she should do it quickly. Shyla put her right in her place, of course, but she didn’t shoot. She let us live, told us to run, despite the fact that I think she was under orders to kill us.” The Dutchess’ voice was soft-edged, humbled. “It wasn’t until later that I found out that she decided at that moment that killing someone who was defenseless, who asked or even begged for a quick end, was not honorable in the tradition of the Codex her people were supposed to follow.”

Sol’s golden eyes had fallen towards the drab gray floor of the cell where her bare feet were cold against it. Her heart was beating a little faster, and the image of her mother sacking a city of pacifists was difficult for her to stomach. But the turn away from needless violence… that reminded her of everything her father had ever said about Shyla Tannor.

“About four years before you were born, there was a battle on Galidraan,” Kryze continued. “During that time the _Kyr’tsad,_ who had been beaten down by Mereel and Jango Fett after him, were being sheltered by the Governor of Galidraan. He was also dealing with insurrectionists, whom he hired the True Mandalorians to deal with. Of course, Tor Viszla put it in the governor’s ear that he would soon be dealing with conquerors whom none but the Jedi could put down, if he let the other Mandos remain.” 

Sol knew that part of history too, of course, but this time she didn’t stop the other woman. Her mouth was dry, her throat sore with the tension that had settled in her body to draw every last ache and pain out of her bones. 

“Of course, the Jedi did put them down. Fett survived— as did your mother, because she was not at the battle. She had been wounded during the insurrections. But they were the last of the True Mandalorians, after the Jedi came, and Shyla felt guilt she almost couldn’t bear. So, she… swore herself to the _Kyr’tsad._ ” 

“Why?” Sol snapped almost involuntarily, hearing the scrape in her voice as her body resisted speaking at all. 

“Because she wanted to destroy them from the inside out,” Kryze replied. “At first it was through vengeance, murder. But something changed. Her tactic shifted to exposing them for their vicious tactics and their relentless hunger for power over the _Mando’ade._ She assisted in placing me on the throne the first time I became Dutchess, and then she helped me and Obi-Wan Kenobi escape during the Death Watch’s first coup.” 

“So she was truly _auretti._ ”

“To the Death Watch, yes. To Mandalore, I am not so certain.” 

Sol felt her innards twist, uncertain of what to make of the tale that had been spun. “And my father?” 

It was almost palpable, the way the air shifted in response to her question. “His clan was Death Watch from the moment that faction formed. He didn’t know what she was doing,” Kryze said after a moment, voice heavy. “Not until that day when I was freed and she was sentenced to death. She didn’t plan to fall in love, I don’t think. But… he did not expect her to be a traitor, either.”

Of course. The guilt that had always weighed on him, the way he begged her ghost for forgiveness. Perhaps having a child had not been planned, either. Perhaps her father truly thought that just once, they might not put a traitor to death. But Nom had not stopped Thar Viszla, had not saved his wife, had not slain to avenge her. Because he was the one who had turned her in. Maybe he had even felt betrayed, only to come to regret it shortly after. _Your mother was right,_ he would always say. _Anger will make you a brute and a coward, one after the other or both at once._

Despite everything, she was the child of a love that had arisen in the midst of a plot that her mother had kept hidden even from her father. A love that existed in spite of their differences, one that had changed everything about her mother’s choice to bring the Death Watch to justice and how. A love, a child that had transformed her anger into something else. Sol didn’t try to stop the tears that came. They fell silently down her face, and her body shook. 

“I tried to convince her to come with us, but she wouldn’t,” Kryze said quietly. “She said she’d never leave you unless death was the one who took her away. It broke my heart when I found out... By the time I could safely return, Nom had taken you with him into exile.” 

Bending fully over, Sol folded her arms together on her knees and buried her face inside them as she wept. Her sobs were choked, hushed as much as they could be, but she knew the other woman could hear them however faintly. Maybe the guards, too. It didn’t matter. The cracks in her heart gave way, and the pain that poured out flooded her and bled from her like it never had before in her life. 

She thought of the fact that if her mother had fled with the Dutchess, she might still be alive. She remembered her father’s drunken tears, his anger, his shame that followed her like a curse. A myriad of other things that could have happened flashed through her mind— could Shyla have taken her little child and run? Would Nom have eventually followed her? Could tiny Sol have been left and raised by another family, brought into another clan? Would it have mattered if she had? 

“I’m sorry, Sol. I wish all the time that there was anything I could do to change what happened. Especially now, in this wretched place, with that vile Zabrak herding the Death Watch like feral dogs. They will turn on him too, soon enough. My sister won’t hold for long under the rule of such a monster.” The Dutchess’ voice hardened as she spoke. But then she sighed, and all of her stony anger drained for a moment. “Shyla loved you, Sol. Nom did too. She told me once that he named you _sol_ because it means the _first—_ the first of many children he hoped to raise and adopt with her as his life-mate.” 

For a long while, as the young woman so far away from and yet so close to the place that could have been her home continued to cry, there was no other sound. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so life is a Lot right now and my updates might be reaaallly slow for a while but i'm no dead and thank you to anyone reading these T-T i love my girl so much.


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